Explain My Microbiology Test Results | MB Labs

total plate count in drinking water

total plate count in drinking water - win

I am in my early 30s, make $75k a year ($120k joint), live in the South, work as a Development Director, and hate capitalism but love a little luxury!

Edited to remove the tables because when I obsessively checked this post on my phone I couldn't read them?? Also I tried to, but was prevented from, editing the title. I know it looks sanctimonious but that's just one small part of my personality I swear. D:
❤️ Section 1: Assets and Debt
Total Net Worth: $30,875 - all equity.
Retirement Balance: $0 for me; $20,500 for my husband in the state pension program for teachers. (My partner, L, has been paying into the state teachers' pension system for 5 years. For most of my 20s, I either worked at very low-paying jobs, or supported myself and others on a teacher’s salary, so no retirement for me. My current job does not have a retirement program, but one of my goals for this year is to either start a Roth IRA or get a new job with a 401k match… or maybe both?)
Savings Account Balance: $23,733 We’re moving this summer to a city closer to our families, and are saving all we can for a down payment on a dreamy spot. After we move, some amount of what’s left over will go into a retirement fund, and the rest will stay in this HYSA as our emergency fund. For us, three months of expenses, including childcare, is about $18,000.
Checking Account Balance: $455
Credit Card Debt: n/a, pay off each month
Student Loan Debt: $80,000 for L’s undergrad and MAT. $18,000 for my undergrad and (unfinished) MAT. (My undergrad degrees were mostly covered by the Pell Grant, scholarships, and a $10,000 529 from my parents. L was a nontraditional student - didn’t start undergrad until he was 24 - so none of his was covered. Most of my debt is for a MAT program I dropped out of after one year. I was trying to find any way out of teaching at the time (it is demanding, all-consuming, and carceral at once) and thought a PhD would be my only route. When I got my current job I promptly left the program and any dreams of a PhD behind.)
Equity: $83,875 (This number is from an online equity calculator, and is for our house in a very popular neighborhood in a very popular city. Our outstanding debt on the house is $295,000. We put our whole savings down in 2019, which was $9,000 at the time.)
❤️ Section 2: Income
Monthly Take Home: My base pay is $65,000, and L’s is $45,000. I worked a side gig last year that totaled about $10k in additional compensation; all of it went to savings so we don't budget for it. My take home is $4096/month for my full time job, and my current side gig income (grant writing) is variable, between $300 and $600 a month. L’s take home is $2262/month. My health insurance is paid in full by work. L’s insurance and B’s come out of L’s paycheck, as does L’s retirement contribution.
Income Progression: I’ve been working since I was 15 years old, moved out for college at 18, and paid my own bills starting that year. I won’t include that money here though (it was like $12,000 a year as a college student, for reference). Income below starts when I graduated with two BAs that had nothing to do with teaching.
Year 1: $15,600 (part time ABA therapist, full time baby anarchist)
Year 2: $32,000 (year 1 teacher salary: I accepted a spot in Teach for America for this giant salary even though I thought it was an obnoxious neoliberal org. Yes, I was also obnoxious at the time.)
Year 3: $33,000 (teacher, step increase)
Year 4: $34,000 (teacher, step increase)
Year 5: $35,000 (teacher, step increase)
Year 6: $15,000 (community organizer; at the time this felt like a dream job)
Year 7: $20,000 (community organizer & cafe worker)
Year 8: $40,000 (back to teaching, felt rich; this includes a side hustle writing grants on the side for $50 an hour)
Year 9: $45,000 (left teaching for my current job, quit the grants side hustle)
Year 10: $55,000 (got a raise, got pregnant)
Year 11: $65,000 (got a raise and promotion, had a baby)
Year 12: $75,000 (was promoted again in January but waiting on the pay increase to hit, hopefully with backdating. This money diary doesn’t reflect this salary as it hasn’t been reflected in my check yet)
❤️ Section 3: Expenses
Mortgage/PMI/Insurance: $2,110
Retirement Contribution: n/a (L’s retirement is pulled out of his check before he receives it: it’s $169 a month. Right now, I don’t have a retirement contribution)
Savings Contribution: $1000 to main savings, $400 to sinking fund (This is a super aggressive goal for us and is only possible because our childcare costs are covered by work)
Debt Payments: n/a right now (We have student loans to the tune of $100k but haven’t been paying a dime since they were paused due to COVID. But then the other day I checked and saw they've gained interest? Should we be paying them then? WWJD? I legit don’t know.)
Electric: $130
Internet: $100
Cellphone: $65 (For L & I both. We are on a bigass family plan with 40 gajillion other people.)
Subscriptions: $45 ($10 Spotify; $10 Youtube music; $2.99 Apple data (Why?!); $22 NYT (for newspaper and cooking app); also have a split subscription to the New Yorker with bestie F but we paid for a yearly deal.)
Car Payment and Insurance: $150 for a car payment; $202 for insurance (Insurance covers both of our used cars and my dad’s used handicap van. Our car payment is for our used Honda. We only owe $6,850 on the car and I’m back and forth on whether to pay it off with savings)
Medical/Therapy: $0 (My therapist is $140 a session, and I just started seeing her again once a month, but this is reimbursed by work. I also get an inhaler at least twice a month - that’s reimbursed too, costs $60 total.)
Misfits Market: $120 (For a weekly box, which really helps us cut down on overall grocery cost)
Gym membership: $30 (For my intense local yoga studio’s app which is so great in the winter. We also run and bike a lot, as long as it’s warm enough)
Donations: $100 (We give monthly to our local Democratic Socialists of America; the Working Families Party; and a small, local org. I’m also on an organizing committee for that org. We’ll give them one big gift of at least $250 this year, probably in May. I support a couple organizations with grant writing and grant-finding support as much as I can, which usually amounts to a few hours a month.)
Childcare: $0 B goes to a very precious Montessori preschool, and we can walk him there. It’s pricey af ($1300/month). The other $200 is to account for some babysitting from my little sister when L or I have to work weird hours. For now, work reimburses this full amount as a COVID perk; if that changes, we will have to cut costs significantly.
House cleaner: $160 (They come twice a month and charge $80 each time.)
❤️ Section 4: Money Diary
NOTE: We are masked and afraid everywhere we go.
✨DAY 1: THURSDAY✨
4:20 am: Good morning world! I shuffle into the kitchen in my panties and my slippers to fill up the gooseneck kettle. I recently got into pour over coffee even though it’s quite a commitment. With a toddler, a full-time job, and a Libra sun, I don’t really have time for meditative morning routines. This lengthy, half-naked coffee regimen is my closest attempt. As soon as I get the coffee brewing, our 18 month old, B, starts making noise. I open the door and see he’s got his pacifier in his mouth and his pillow in his arms. He wants to lay with Dada. I help him get in the bed with my husband, L, as quietly as possible. Last week L was super sick and we thought for sure he had picked up COVID. Blessedly all of our tests came back negative, but on the heels of that, he started having major tooth pain and had to have an emergency tooth extraction, AND he got an ear infection as he was coming down from whatever virus he had. I hate it :(
I get dressed and do some chores while they snooze to ease L's morning. I start the diaper laundry (usually his job - we use cloth), put away the dishes, start the Eufy vacuum, and get B and L’s breakfasts together: sunbutter and a little bit of syrup on some banana pancakes I prepped earlier this week.
6:30 am: B and L are up! The hour before we take B to preschool is kind of a marathon. L eats with B (and supervises his syrup consumption) as I clean out some more dirty diapers, brush my teeth, make another cup of coffee, strip our sheets, spray my hair with water to refresh the curl, return a few group texts, and wash some breakfast dishes. Somewhere in here I also eat two boiled eggs with Everything But the Bagel seasoning, and a bunch of grapes.
I help L get B loaded up in the car, and just as they pull off, my parents Facetime me. They’re calling to see B but are polite enough to talk to me for a few minutes. They live a few hours away, and are divorced, but cohabitating. The full story is long and spiritual for me so I’ll spare you. Anyway, my mom and I talk for a while about this couch she thinks I should buy from one of her friends, but it’s two hours away and we’d have to rent a U-Haul, so I think we’ll pass. I do hate our current couch though. Please drop comfy toddler- and dog-friendly recommendations in the comments!
8:15 am: I set out to walk the dog and listen to the Daily’s recent update on the coronavirus. Donald G. McNeill, Jr., says we’re in this through the summer, which is a bummer on the personal and global front, but I suppose it could be worse??? Maybe?? As soon as they finish talking I switch over to You’re Wrong About. I’m deep in the Jessica Simpson series and highly recommend this pod for any other nerdy, lefty, kinda burnt out millennials, especially those of you that are queer or queer-adjacent. Once home, I take my whole operation onto the front porch to work, since the cleaner will be here soon and I don’t want to crowd her in this time of COVID. I LOVE a clean house and I love paying someone else to do the big stuff, which is a recent luxury for us.
11:00 am: I’ve been working steadily in my email and google docs for a couple hours now, and it’s COLD out here. The cleaner leaves and I am grateful to go back into the heat. I Venmo her $80 for the cleaning (included in monthly expenses). I take a break from work and check out the job boards. My current job is the best, and highest-paying, gig I’ve ever had, but I’m planning to leave some time this year for several reasons. The premier reason: I recently learned that I’m qualified for several positions that pay over $100k at similar organizations. With that kind of money we could pay off our student loans, help our families out more, make sizable donations, and L could explore a career outside of teaching without freaking about a slight cut in his pay for a few years as he finds his niche. Or - maybe he’ll get into Edtech somehow and we’ll join Resource Generation. Who knows.
12:30 pm: I have a quick break and pull together lunch: half a cheese quesadilla, a big bowl of Smitten Kitchen’s roasted tomato soup, and a LimonCello LaCroix. L is on his planning period and asks me to edit his most recent job application, and I oblige. Since we’re both job hunting, I ask him if I can buy a resume template and guide on Etsy. I have sworn off online shopping for the year to curb my impulse spending, but he says we’ll just count this one as his purchase. Great news because I hate the formatting of my resume from 2016 and don’t want to fix it myself! $9.95
3:30 pm: My Zooms are over, my inbox is at 0, and I put up my out of office message because I’m taking the day off tomorrow to work on my resume and do some things to prep our house for sale. My high-functioning anxiety created an ambitious backwards timeline for this process back in December, and that timeline currently runs my life. I work for a few more minutes to tie up loose ends, and then walk O to a nearby shop to buy my favorite candle, curbside-style. When I get there the owner gives me some percentage off because it’s slightly discolored from the sun. Huzzah! $27.25, marked down from $40
4:45 pm: My angel of a baby sister, J, who lives just a few blocks away and is in a pod with us, comes to hang out with B for an hour so L can rest. I head to my good friend D’s place for my investment overalls appointment. She's going to alter their awkward wide leg into more of a tapered, mom jean shape. I have a capsule wardrobe which means I’ll wear these babies at least once a week, and plus I get to pay my friend, so I’m fine with the extra expense. When I arrive, she and her partner have the fire pit going, and we drink a couple glasses of wine together, yet more than 6 feet apart. I learn they are planning to move to the same new city as us in the next couple of years and legit cry happy tears.
Afterwards, I head out to pick up dinner for tonight. We are getting burgers from L’s favorite place as a treat. On my way, the WOLF MOON appears over the water and my stomach does triple flips. Then I pick up our dinner: a veggie burger with eggplant jam and kale for me; a real-meat burger with mushrooms, bacon, swiss, carmelized onion, and horseradish mayo for L; and an appetizer plate with pretzels, pimento cheese, onion jam, pickles, and chips for B. Delicious and unhealthy. The total is $34.54.
6:30: Home and eating dinner. B loves his meal, especially the “chokes.” He calls pretzels “chokes” because when L first started feeding them to him, I worried aloud that he would choke every time. I just couldn’t stop thinking about how a pretzel almost took out George W. Bush. Turns out our toddler is better at chewing than George W. Bush.
After dinner, L gives B a bubble bath while I do my own, very minimal, bedtime routine. Then L and I lay down with B to put him to sleep. He has a floor bed, which is a Montessori thing I learned about on mom blogs. L is a very hot and talented woodworker, so he took my floor bed dream to the next level by building a lovely house-shaped frame. The top beam is wrapped in twinkle lights and fake ivy. It’s a nice place to sleep, and we pass out here all the time.
10:30 pm: L wakes me up and we wander to our own bed.
🌿 DAILY TOTAL: 71.74
✨ DAY 2: FRIDAY✨
4:15 am: Wake up and go look at the clock. Decide this is a silly time to get up on a day off, drink some water, and go lay back down. But once in bed all I can think about is how much I want to read the news, organize my resume, and update this money diary. This is the problem with falling asleep at toddler time. So I get up again at 4:45, make my coffee, read a New Yorker article about Biden’s pandemic response on my phone, and sit down to work on this diary.
6:00 am: L wakes up! He works on breakfast for himself and B and I start meal planning for the month. This is one of my best and most recent life hacks. I found that if I chart out our cooking, weekly takeout, and leftovers at the start of the month, we save lots of money and are so much less stressed about the labor that goes into feeding ourselves. I pull out Smitten Kitchen Every Day and use it to inspire the month’s meals. So quaint to cook from an actual BOOK.
6:45 am: B walks out of our room and announces that he drank my water off the side table. He’s so proud! And so ready to eat. While he eats breakfast, I snack on some grapes and, at B’s request, blast 7 Days A Week by They Might Be Giants. This is the consummate children’s song for any household that dreams of a self-determined world. Over the next hour I take B to school; make myself a real breakfast (a soy chorizo and egg taco); and browse TikTok. Eventually I find a series about this Gamestop situation by a smart Irish woman and L and I watch it together. When it’s over we feel like shrewd stock brokers ready to win money, and L gets to work teaching virtually.
I spend the morning painting our front door and our kitchen wall to prep our house to sell, and talking to my (other) little sister on the phone. She’s an HR person with a job that’s taken her far away from our family, and we don’t talk that often. It is so good to catch up on her life. After that I have a fun, day-off Zoom call with longtime bestie and coworker K. We drink coffee and talk about The Future.
12:30 pm: I make lunch (tomato soup with goat cheese on top, and a savory scone on the side) and get a text from another bestie, M, who offers me a little grant writing contract work this week. Yay! I love them and love working with them. Next, I order our groceries for the week. I get baking powder, eggs, cremini mushrooms, vegan sausage patties, oat milk, ginger root, shredded cheddar cheese, plantains, black beans, doggy bags, broccoli, vegan chicken strips, artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, capers, ciabatta bread, grits, bananas, avocados, greek yogurt, and on impulse, a pineapple on sale (?!). Maybe B will love it. The total comes to $94.08.
1:15 pm: I do a brief power vinyasa class in B’s room and take a shower. It takes me approximately two Drake songs to shower and dry off, as I don’t have to wash my hair today and I never shave. I work on my resume until L and I leave to pick up B. On the way home we stop at the park to play, and then we all get in the car to pick up groceries.
6:30 pm: We get home later than planned and eat together: leftover tofu ramen for us and veggie lasagna for B, who is so sleepy that he hardly touches his lasagna. L gets him in the bath around 7:15 and I run through my evening routine. There’s a lot going on in the house - preschool lunch and clothes to put up, a mountain of laundry in our room, all of the groceries for the week waiting to be put away, and dinner dishes are languishing in the sink. L starts on chores while I get B dressed.
As I’m dressing B, my mom Facetimes and B shows her several of his board books. While we’re talking my dad texts me a heart emoji - he overheard B and my mom talking from his room. He lives with a disability and a painful illness, so he goes to bed very early. We hang up with my mom and record a video of B making “P” sounds and saying “I love you” to my dad, and send it over. This is the first time B’s ever said “I love you!” Huge news. We read books and fall asleep next to B.
9 pm: I wake up and nudge L but he wants to keep sleeping. I go clean the dinner dishes, put away the food and reorganize the cabinets and fridge, and mop the kitchen floor while I listen to The Daily’s latest reporting on QAnon believers who are at once totally bananagrams and also remind me very much of my aunt. L wakes up at 9:30 because he and Y, my sister’s boyfriend, are gonna game. Cute! He finishes the laundry and I fold a few diapers to help out. Then we lay in bed together until game time, when I fall asleep.
🌿 DAILY TOTAL: 94.08
✨DAY 3: SATURDAY✨
5:40 am: Wake up at a ~*~weekend hour~*~!! Start my kettle, clean and moisturize my face, pull out the ingredients for waffles, and pick up around the house while I wait for it to boil. I try to read some, but get bored a few pages in. I’m currently reading How to Do Nothing and it’s good enough, but I think I need to chill on the nonfiction and read, like, saucy romance novels with hot bisexual leads. Send me your recs please!
Waffle time! This recipe is my go-to. I recommend whipping the egg whites first. B wakes up around 7:15 and helps me cook which is cute and very messy. He eats his waffle with honey, peanut butter, and grapes. L wakes up after him - he had a late night gaming!
8 am: I open yesterday’s mail and find an anti-abortion DVD from L’s grandma. It’s Abby Johnson’s “memoir.” Abby Johnson is an opportunistic right winger and documented liar who once moonlighted as a Planned Parenthood clinic manager. L is a preacher’s kid, so we’re not surprised to receive this from his grandma. For example: 10 years ago, when L and I were a couple years into our relationship, her Christmas gift to me was a book about how one can recover from being a slut by getting married and finding Jesus. This particular package really sends me over the edge, though. I decide to write them a short note later that states my own experience with abortion and sets a clear boundary on this kind of propaganda, and includes an article about Abby Johnson’s bullshit life. It’s unlikely this will change their minds - they are septuagenarian Southern Baptists, after all - but at least I’ll be in my integrity.
In the meantime, I group text L’s siblings, and they commiserate with us. His one sibling who is transitioning shares that grandma recently sent them a book about how to tell your gay friends they’re sinning. We agree that’s hilariously dense (and fucking rude) of her, and talk about how everyone under forty is a gay slut living their best life, so really it’s grandma’s loss. During this time I clean the kitchen, finish the waffles, and freeze them for B’s weekday breakfasts.
9:30 am: B asks to use the potty and does a great job peeing on his own! He’s geeked about it and is especially excited to have my parents on Facetime cheering him on. After that we head out on our morning walk. L takes B to the playground and I take O to the dog park nearby. She gets tired pretty quick and we all head to the thrift store. We need chairs for our hand-me-down kitchen table. The ones that came with it are awkwardly wide. L spots two sturdy ones that are just $5 each. Score! $10
11:30 am: B and L are both wiped out once we get home. They eat lunch and go to sleep. I clean up the kitchen, repot one of my plants, water our porch plants, and eat some leftover ramen for lunch. The Marie Antoinette episode of You’re Wrong About keeps me company all the while. 10/10 would recommend.
2 pm: B wakes up and eats some lunch. We watercolor together for a while (he on his big paper, I in my bullet journal), then walk down the street to the local high school while L preps potatoes for our fondue. The high school grounds are open on the weekends, and there’s an amphitheatre on site. B loves the echo in there.
4:30 pm: L joins us in the amphitheatre and together we drag B two blocks back home. I prep the fondue: brie, gouda, and more gouda with white wine. It ends up being a little clumpy but so delicious. My sister, J, and her boyfriend, Y arrive while I’m cooking. Y brings yummy baguettes from his bakery job for the dipping and we prep broccoli, green beans, and tempeh too. We sit down in our new chairs to eat and for the zillionth time I am so thankful we’ve been able to make a pod together this year. Fondue would be a terrifying proposition with anyone else, really.
While we eat, Y tells us he put in his two weeks at the bakery because their COVID protocols aren’t so tight and his coworkers are continuing to go to bars and out to eat. His plan for now is to get back on unemployment and find a virtual job sometime soon. Both he and my sister have worked food service their whole adult lives so the pandemic has been tough on them. Besides the fact that they’re delightful and perfect, this is one key reason we’re planning to move with them to our new city this summer: L and I will be able to easily afford the majority of the rent, deposits, and utilities on a pretty big, and centrally located, house. Living together will allow us to grow our savings and take our time looking for a Forever Home, and will allow J and Y to pay really low rent as my sister goes back to school full time and Y looks for a full-time job. I’m really looking forward to living with them and know it’ll be good for B, too. They leave around 7 pm and we put B to bed, this time without falling asleep ourselves!
8:30 pm: Turn on How I Met Your Mother in bed and the episodes are baaaaad bad. One entire episode casts sex workers as a punch line. Ick. L and I agree to find a new show, and fall asleep around 10.
11 pm - 2 am: B is up and between our two beds. Wahhhh.
🌿 DAILY TOTAL: 10
✨DAY 4: SUNDAY✨
6 am: Up and at ‘em! Discover I’m out of my fancy coffee and don’t want to emphasize the flavor of our grocery store beans with a slow pour, so make a french press instead. B wakes up too early so we watch toddlers together on TikTok while I drink my coffee, then read books while L makes us all eggs for breakfast. We head out for our morning walk around 9 am and stop at a coffee shop a few blocks away. I pick up Counter Culture’s Iridescent beans, buy an espresso brownie on a whim, and tip the cashier because she’s so sweet and tipping is good. The total is 23.03. L takes B to the playground and I drop my purchases and O back at the house before I head out for a run.
9:45 am: It’s 65 degrees and my run is glorious. I run to the water and pause Lil Yachty for a minute to take it all in. Once home I shower and put on a black LA Apparel catsuit and a marled black and white cocoon sweater from AA of the past (I like what I like!). We feed B lunch and then L puts him down while I clean up.
Around 11:30, J comes over after to watch B while we remove the storm windows from our whole house and clean the windows underneath as part of our work to prep the house for sale. We’re a solid team: L removes the storm windows and caulks all the gaps in the wood while I follow behind him and wash the windows inside and out. Our sweet neighbor catches us cleaning and offers to let us use her power washer for free next weekend to clean up the front of the house. I resolve to bake them some cookies.
2:30 pm: We are done with the window operation and it’s time for me to water all 57 plants in the house. Along the way, discover that I overwatered B’s hoya last week and it’s rotting. Noooo! I unpot it on the porch to dry the roots, but it’s raining so this might not work. There’s only one surefire solution: buy a replacement plant! I try to convince L we should go to the nursery, but he’s not so into it. I walk around dejectedly with a towel to clean up all the water I spilled, and Zelle J $70 for babysitting even though she insists she would do it for free. Next B, L, and I share a snack: crackers with goat cheese and harissa. Mmm. B skips the harissa but loves the goat cheese. Meanwhile I begin to stress about making dinner. We’d planned goddess bowls but L and I just aren’t feeling it after our marathon of house work. L requests Chinese and is suddenly more amenable to visiting the nursery, which is near our favorite Chinese takeout spot. Score!
5:00 pm: We leave the plant shop with a heartleaf philodendron for B’s room and a giant, lovely, perfect monstera deliciosa just because. The total comes to $53.24. Then we pick up our food: $33.08 including the tip. L ordered a large veggie lo mein to share with B and General Tso’s chicken, and I got family style tofu and vegetables. We start B’s bedtime routine at 6:30 and he’s out by 7:00 - early for him!
After he’s down, L preps his breakfast sandwiches for the week and I do some dishes. Then we take mutual advantage of the extra hour we have together. Even after 12 years it’s always so good with L. I fall asleep around 10 pm feeling blessed.
🌿 Daily total: 179.32
✨DAY 5: MONDAY✨
5 am: I make my pour over and get started on work first thing. I have a couple of deadlines this week and the side gig to balance so I’m already feeling pressed for time! I wrap up an entire grant report before 6 am and feel very accomplished. Then I pause work to start our breakfast, which is all pre-prepped, hallelujah. While L and B eat breakfast, I get dressed in a black turtleneck minidress, busted old tights, black ankle socks, and my Doc Martens.
I help L load up the car with B and all his gear, and tell L to be careful. Today is L’s first day back teaching in person since December, and we’re both nervous since COVID is still running wild in our red state. On the way to work he fills up his car for $18.33.
2:30 pm: After another grant report, seventy gajillion emails, forty Slack messages, and several hours of Zoom calls, I’m ready for a break. I finish eating the quinoa salad I prepped during Zoom call #2 and then eat a pear too. I see our Misfits box has been delivered. It’s $30 a week, and is included in our monthly expenses. I unpack it, clean the counters, wipe down the bathroom sinks, take O for a walk, and sit down to work on my side gig grant report, which is due Wednesday. I set a 30 minute timer because I don’t want to be too late picking up B.
4:25 pm: Worked longer than I meant to! Pack some snacks and pick up B. On the way home we get a giant bag of potting soil so I can repot those plants. It’s $18.52. Come home and engage in B’s favorite winter activity: pressing all the buttons in the turned-off car. Meanwhile, in another car across town, L picks up a big bag of Purina One, butter, maple syrup, and applesauce. That total is $28.64.
5:30 pm: The whole family is home and we kick it inside until it starts to get dark. L and I gather all the things and take the creatures out for a walk even though there’s a light, but very cold, rain happening. B is cranky and so are we, so the walk is quick.
We eat leftover Chinese food around 7 and start B’s bedtime routine. B falls asleep at 8 and I update this diary for a while, then go watch Ted Lasso in bed with L til about 9:30. It’s much better than How I Met Your Mother, for the record.
🌿 DAILY TOTAL: 65.51
✨Day 6: TUESDAY✨
3 am: B wakes up and needs a diaper change. I have the hardest time falling back asleep after: I can’t stop thinking about how I left B’s hoya out in the cold with its roots exposed most of the day yesterday and into tonight. But it’s too cold for me to get up again and pull it inside! So instead I toss and turn and hope it’s not dead yet.
6 am: L’s alarm wakes me up! No early morning reading and writing time for me. I get right up, make a giant pour over, and get breakfast together while L wakes up B. Then I actually sit down with them to eat: B and I both eat boiled eggs with everything but the bagel seasoning and some coconut milk yogurt, and L sips his coffee while his breakfast sandwich heats in the oven. I get dressed in my workout gear and walk the dog while L gets B ready for school. They leave, and I finally bring the hoya in, and start work, around 7:30. L buys coffee and snacks from the gas station on his way to work: $6.88.
9:30 am: I grab some crackers and peanut butter from the kitchen and notice a DMV bill on the fridge I’ve been meaning to pay, but don’t totally understand. I call them up and respond to emails while I sit on hold. Turns out I owe the DMV $10 for paying my Dad’s van insurance late. With the “processing fee” it comes to $11.17.
1:30 pm: Been on Zoom calls all morning, and decide to switch over to the side gig work for a bit. Meanwhile I eat that quinoa salad I prepped yesterday. At 2 pm, my longtime bestie and neighbor F comes over and we take O for a walk in the park together and have such a good conversation. While the context is (very) different, I’m reminded of the Toni Morrison quote when I think of F: “She’s a friend of my mind.” Such a gem, and such a smartie. At 3:30 I start a HIIT yoga class and it kicks my butt even though it’s only 20 minutes long. Afterwards, I shower and pick up B.
5:00 pm: L arrives home while B and I are playing, and we get in the car once more to check out a cute couch L scoped out on Facebook marketplace. It’s a sweet vintage brown velvet actually-for-real midcentury situation. Unfortunately we discover it’s also small and very uncomfortable. $200 not spent. Once home, my family goes for a walk and I make dinner - this grits and beans recipe from NYT cooking. It’s blessedly quick to pull together. Meanwhile D texts me and says my overalls are ready! YAY! She’s gonna drop them off in a couple of days. She says the total is $30. I include a tip and Venmo her $40.
7:00 pm: At bedtime, B cannot get enough of his books and we read All The World several times. He finally falls asleep around 8:20 and L and I eat dinner on the couch, with Ted Lasso. I drink a glass of red wine, which is a mistake: my anxiety spikes right after, my stomach hurts, and I can’t sleep. This is very upsetting as I want very much to be a wine mom. Does this happen to anyone else?
🌿 DAILY TOTAL: 58.05
✨DAY 7: WEDNESDAY✨
5:45 am: Wake up with B cuddled into my back - L moved him to our bed in the middle of the night after his second wake up. Get my coffee and breakfast together and sit down at my computer to work on the side gig grant while everyone's asleep. Then L and I manage the morning rush together. I eat sourdough toast, two scrambled eggs, and some pineapple along the way.
7:30 am: Take O out for a walk and on a whim decide to listen to one of my favorite easy-listening pods: A Beautiful Mess. Normally the two sisters and co-hosts, Elsie and Emma, chat about things like home decor or craft making or how to balance kids and work. This episode is about the host’s evangelical upbringing, though, and is a real raw and honest tear jerker. Pair it with this, one of my top reads of 2020: “What Does the White Evangelical Want?” It gets me thinking about L’s upbringing in the church. He and all his siblings are all agnostic now.
Finally sit down at my desk and debate taking Adderall. I used it regularly in college and for a few years after in order to Do All The Things. I try to stay away from it now - I’m not trying to live an impossible life any more - but I also really want to pick B up earlier than normal today, and that means I need to meet all my deadlines and make it through two Zoom calls with my direct reports by 3 pm. I decide to take 4 mg. Right after I take it, three different friends text me at once and then, suddenly, I’ve spent an hour catching up via text. Get to work for real around 9 am.
3:00 pm: Wrapped all my calls, answered all my emails, washed all the dishes, ate some lunch, and finished the side gig work! OK Adderall, you beautiful bitch. Spend a few more minutes tying up loose ends and then gather my things to pick B up from school. The plan today is to go “play basketball” in the park near his school because he is OBSESSED with balls, and I’m trying to do more magical things every day with him. It’s cold but I’m ready to brave it on his precious, curly-headed behalf.
At 4 pm J calls and asks to go pick him up with me. Hooray, things just got even more magical! We head to a different-than-usual park together and run around until B sits in, and then drinks from, a puddle. We panic and J googles “What happens if my baby drinks from a puddle?” The search returns lots of stories of babies eating muddy rocks and surviving, so we decide it’s ok.
5:00 pm Head home and L is back from work! We take the smols on a walk and I tell L that I think nighttime screentime is making me anxious. I’m a sensitive creature and I really don’t want to blame the wine. He’s very perfect so he helps me think through an alternate plan for this evening: hot tea and book reading in bed, and maybe sex, too! Fun.
Next, I head home with O to pot the plants we bought the other day, and L takes B to the playground. They get back around 6:30 and I am very excited to reveal my new plant placements. Everyone feigns interest except O. Then we eat leftovers together and B gets in bed around 7:30. L and I promptly fall asleep next to him and don’t wake up again til 11 pm. Guess our new nighttime routine will have to wait til tomorrow!
🌿 DAILY TOTAL: 0
❤️ Section 5: TOTALS
Total Expenses: $478.71
Food & Drink: $220.25
Fun & Entertainment: $0
Home & Health: $109.01
Clothes & Beauty: $40
Transport: $29.50
Other: $79.95
❤️ Section 6: REFLECTION
This week reflects a new normal for us, I think! We just set the goal of saving up for another down payment in December, and that’s when I swore off online shopping both to save money and to stop lining the pockets of evil billionaires like Bezos (no shade to anyone who uses Amazon, this is purely a personal goal & I’m not sure I can meet it). This self-imposed rule is helping me reign in my discretionary spending overall. L and I have only been living a two-income, middle class life for a few years, and my lifestyle creep was a little out of control in 2020. That said, I can and do still regularly justify spending money on things that make life more luxurious and beautiful - like a $40 candle or a totally unnecessary but very lovely plant.
There are a couple of things not reflected in this diary that we regularly spend on: gifts (my achilles heel - for example, we spent three! thousand! dollars! on Christmas gifts in December), and medical bills. Both B and I had to visit the emergency room in 2020 and we are still getting random bills in the mail as our insurance company and the hospital duke it out. As I was editing this diary on Thursday, I received one for $787. Wahhhh. I think I’m gonna get on a payment plan, but even so that it will be over $200 a month.
Last thought: this process got me thinking in some detail about the contradiction of organizing for the fall of capitalism (and the rise of a more gentle and just economic system), yet believing everyone - including ourselves and our own families - deserve to live full and abundant lives. This means I compromise my own anti-capitalist values and beliefs every day, in big and small ways. Discuss?
submitted by mdanonomy21 to MoneyDiariesACTIVE [link] [comments]

JoJo's Bizarre OC Tournament #5: Round 3 Match 6 Anthony ‘Ani’ Oakey and Kamen Rider Volt Versus ?????

The results are in for Match 4. The winner is…
Rushen walked out across the training ground after the four hours had concluded, a beaming smile on his face as she walked up to the four trainers. “Looks like I made some real good choices on you guys, huh? Really put these guys through the ringer!”
The various trainees stood around chatting with each other about their different experiences throughout the day before forming an orderly line once their leader came into view. Many were exhausted, yet at the same time, there was a certain sense of camaraderie there, high spirits… They felt ready to take on the world, yet they were starting to think they may not necessarily need to think of everyone as a potential enemy either.
Fira tilted her head back before taking a few steps forward. “Look, Rushen, compliments don’t keep the lights on or teeth perfect. You gonna pay us or not?”
Rushen took a quick step back and pulled out several light blue envelopes and handed them to both the pairs. “Figured you two would want yours in cash… Don’t lemme hear you spent it on nothing shady, alright?”
Fira almost smiled as she felt what must have been a decent stack of crisp bills. A smirk would do. “That’s satisfactory, yeah.” Byte, then, gave her an expectant look, only to be handed an even-looking cut. “Alright, fine.”
Cab and Inch, meanwhile, simply thanked Rushen for theirs, receiving it through checks as normal people tended to prefer receiving large payments for services.
After payment had been dispersed Rushen took a step back and looked over the paris. “Listen, the boss is impressed with both of you, but she specifically requested that two of you come to speak with her in her office…”
Right… The bonus, huh? The four guest instructors stood, then, tensely… So it was only one team getting it, huh?
“Sauvignon, Nine, c’mon.” Rushen jerked his thumb. “Allday’s a busy woman. Best not to make her wait.”
The Black Hill Estate, with a score of 76 to Graveyard Shift’s 69!
Category Winner Point Totals Comments
Popularity Black Hill Estate 18-12 Nine votes split 5.5-3.5.
Quality Tie 24-24 Reasoning
JoJolity Black Hill Estate 24-23 Reasoning
Conduct Tie 10-10
“Fira, Byte, you two can go home now… Keep an eye on Elephant Bones. Good eats there. Think between that and what you could do with that gym next door, you’d be better off going legit.”
Byte took an instinctive step forward in protest. “What the hell do you mean? How’s a regimen like theirs gonna get a meeting with the big boss?”
Rushen shrugged and turned away before speaking. “Not my call. You two did good work, though… Really. Remember that when you’re countin’ out your bills there.”
Byte sighed, then, turning to Fira, who shrugged. “Let’s get something to eat, I guess… That’s something to do. What’s even open right now?”
Rushen saw the quartet off in their separate ways with a sigh, folding his arms. Today was a good day… Now, I only hope tomorrow’s as good. The day these recruits and I take down a whole crime ring is fast approaching, and even beyond that… Ugo ain’t just gonna go quietly. I am damn sure he’s gonna start something with that Neighborhood Watch he helped fold into us in Aurelio, and with Oxbow breathing down our necks until we can get peace worked out West of there, I can’t do a thing but hope they don’t act before it’s safe to disband them.
Within the next fifteen minutes Cab and Inch were in an elevator going to the top floor of one of the most imposing buildings in the city: ODIN HQ. As they rose Cab turned to Inch, his brow furrowed. “How much do we even know about this Miss. Allday anyways? You don’t see her around much, just hear her talked about in the news, politicians and protesters and the like… I only really see anything concrete in the form of projects she slaps that name of hers on.”
Inch thought for a moment and spoke. “It… It is a paradox to me, yes. Strange that someone so invested in this city is at once so elusive from it.” She turned to the ticing floor tracker at the top of the elevator steadily going up. “In any case this is a good opportunity. I doubt that people like us get many chances to meet with her, let alone requested by her.”
With that the elevator door slowly opened revealing a large, open office space with a multitude of white boards and empty parfait cups scattered across the space. “Nine, Sauvignon… Correct? It is a pleasure to meet you.” Sitting in the middle at a large, glass desk sat a white-haired woman with as welcoming of a smile as she could muster at the time. The effort of goodwill seemed earnest, but big smiles seemed uncomfortable and foreign on her face.
“My name is Arazu Allday… Though, I suppose you didn’t need to be told that. Ergh, I’m not good at niceties…” She shook her head, quiet and frowning a moment, before looking up with a sterner sort of warmth. “I wanted to thank you personally for your approach to aiding Mr. Smith in instruction. Sure, the combat lessons were good and fine, but the wise know that is far from the only thing this new generation of VALKYRIE needed to learn.”
“I’ll cut to the chase. You’ve done a great thing for us as a company, developing a regimen specifically to take the toxicity of Ugo McBaise and the ‘wisdom’ that he descended from out of those recruits' heads. I think now, they’re on a better track. With all that out of the way though, before we talk more, would either of you like a refreshment? As you can tell, sweetness does not come easy to me, but… Perhaps a parfait would substitute for that.”
There’s still a few hours left yet, as of posting this, to vote and make your voices heard in a bitter 2v2 Battle in a Stairwell.
Scenario:
Sound’s Garden Eastern Strip - Fox’s Penthouse Apartment
“Alright, Toby, you’re doing great! You’re recovering faster than any client I’ve ever had, even… You’ll be running marathons by Summertime like this!”
Toby Fox, the elusive shadow boss of the Entertainment District’s underworld, managed to step away from the bars that his physical therapist had set up for him, limping slightly, yet at the same time, confident in his progress. He had been shot months ago, twice in places where a few centimeters off could have paralyzed him for life, or even killed him, yet he’d managed to be up on his feet, if weakly, before the year had even ended. It would’ve gone a lot faster had he felt safe patronizing the Devil Blue, but… No. Peres Straviat was friendly with No, and with the University Board. Healing up the hard way, out of the public eye, had to do.
He rested his feet in the sand garden he’d made into a workout space, curling his toes against the grains and drinking from a water bottle as the therapist smiled at him. She had a very affable, can-do attitude about her, and he was certain this motivating presence had helped him along as well.
“A fresh start, then… That’s what this is. Tigran and I, we’re clearing our heads of all that nonsense about expansion, and getting back to the roots of what made our enterprise lasting… Intimate, guerilla shows of Stand Users coerced into beating one another senseless!”
“That’s the spirit, Mr. Fox! Oh, Tigran will be delighted to hear you’re in high spirits again! I bet that-”
She paused, then, going silent, before removing a pistol from her tracksuit. “…I just heard something. Someone’s outside. Sounds like a few people… I hear the distinctive shakes of body armor.”
“A raid? How didn’t you notice sooner, with those ears of yours? If… If the sounds were drowned out, then…” He shook his head, the sand around him beginning to swirl into a sort of vortex. “No matter. If it’s VALKYRIE or the police or something finally come for us, then all we need to do is let them tear themselves to pieces against my own defenses! We’ll get away…”
“Well said!” The therapist agreed. “We’ll just walk briskly out! You can handle that on that leg of yours, right?”
“Of course…” Fox smirked, hearing the door beginning to be banged up against and walking closer, his personal sandstorm still meters around, waiting just to its side before concluding. “Alright… Let our guests in.”
But an utterly blind charge into Fox’s attack, the sort of violent and overwhelming rushdown strategies that VALKYRIE had been notorious for before, which Fox himself was basically immune to with even seconds of preparation time, didn’t come. Rather, then, a more careful approach was taken, the enemy Stand Users kiting his range, blocking fire from the therapist’s pistol, and even actively taking time to deprive him of the sand that had been at his feet, cut him off form gathering any more from his little rock garden. Soon enough, he’d needed to make a sort of cone to fend the lot of them off as he backed towards a fire escape, finding his apartment pushed into and himself more and more outnumbered.
As soon as he leapt out of the now-opened window into the escape, bracing himself for some pain on his leg and needing to rapidly climb down anyway, he instead found himself flying far, far back, sonic energies blasting him into a wall adorned with an intricately-woven quilt of a funny white dog, knocking it loose and seeing it land overtop him.
Toby Fox’s mind was racing. These… These couldn’t be VALKYRIE. They were too careful… They fought like anybody cared if they lived or died, and the only property that had been damaged at all was in his own apartment. Some special forces team doing a false flag thing? But why? That was a sonic blast just now, a sound-based strike to his very core, by a helmeted member of the unit who stepped in and approached him fearlessly, something holstered at their side. Could… Could it have been that..?
“Fox, you’re under arrest.”
At the undoubtedly masculine voice which had come from his latest attacker, despite his situation, several guns trained on him as two strong-looking guys pulled him away from any particulate, cuffed him and the physical therapist, was relief that the worst thing he was imagining hadn’t come to pass.
As Rushen Smith pulled his helmet off and took a breath, he spoke into a communicator attached to his ear, putting his finger up to it as he adjusted the sunglasses he had of course decided to wear under full body armor. “Team A reporting in. We got ‘em… Looks like we caught him in the middle of PT. No casualties, but the physical therapist pulled a gun on us too… We’re booking her too.”
“So it’s all gone smoothly, then? Excellent! Our other teams are reporting similarly… Only one who’s slipped away is Golden Boy.”
“Keep lookin’. Man going around in as much gold as that guy can’t stay hidden for long. Over and out.”
“To be honest…” Fox couldn’t help but chuckle in disbelief, breathily, wobbling on his uneasy legs. It made him happy, again, to overhear that Tigran (nobody else could be ‘Golden Boy,’ right?) “If I was going to go down, I was expecting something a little more… Climactic.”
“Yeah, well, this is it. You’re going downtown.”
The Woods at Aurelio - An Abandoned Police Station, Slightly Earlier
“Bull shit!”
Uh oh. Ugo was in a bad mood, and Rob was out shopping. Anthony ‘Ani’ Oakey, sitting in the former small-town jail cell which had been renovated into a damn serviceable emergency living space, sat up, realizing that nobody else was around at all. He’d have to bear the brunt of this guy ranting, huh?
The two of them had outright faked their deaths to get closer to the famously unhinged head of VALKYRIE… They had to, in order to make this mission work without Byron painting a target on the collective backs of all of their friends, or worse, them thinking they’d lived on to betray them. They had seen the man for what he was, not just some aggressive meathead who only knew how to rush forward, but something far more dangerous.
He was a schemer who had quietly been polishing off plans to, if need be, potentially ruin any number of people in the city. From known enemies of his like Conqueror Worm, Ernie Ford, Byron Oxbow, to even ostensible allies like Arazu Allday, Chairman Ray, Cairo Satori, and several different Board Members. If it wasn’t for the fact that he just lacked the tactical flexibility to pull anything off, he might have accomplished more, but even then, as equipped as he was, hungry as he was to bring about his idea of order, there was no way to call him anything but dangerous.
Not days later, they’d learned their new boss was fired, and lost with that any semblance of accountability he’d had. The neighborhood watch still liked him second only to their founder, and recognizing the danger to themselves that would come with refusal, and many of his long time supporters within VALKYRIE quit and joined up with him upon his firing. The sole remaining police officer in the small town took a hefty payment for an early retirement making sure he was the law of the land. Ugo took up this new base of operations, smaller though it was than his old office, and kept working like nothing was changed.
“No higher-ups, no stockholders, no need for\ paperwork piling up in my way, yeah? So basically, I’ve got more space, really.” He’d said with a cold smirk. “Don’t worry about things on my end… I’ve had money stored away in case something like this happened. I’ll land on my feet. You two are the ones who need to remember your place… And our contract stands. You are loyal to me. Not Allday and not anyone she tries to say is in charge of VALKYRIE. Honoring their orders over mine is treason, and you can ask my old second in command how that goes.
“This is a good thing in disguise. Being lead of Allday’s VALKYRIE was a good teacher, but Allday is weak, as is that excuse for a replacement she found for me. This means that we have the opportunity to be the prime law for hire in this decrepit city. You should be grateful I took you on at this turning point. The only regret I have is that all my work in tracking down and taking down the scum of the entertainment District. It had been my white whale for years, and now that glory is going to some undeserving fed” For the first time Ani caught something deeper in Ugo something seething and angry that festerd under his controlled facade.
“I…” Ani had to choose his words carefully, feeling drained of much of his enthusiasm by the hard situation he’d placed himself into. Ugo had genuinely seemed pleased with the fact that VALKYRIE was going to lead a raid on the leadership of the Entertainment District’s illegal fighting rings, excited that he’d be in charge of coordinating a massive raid that would make the company look good. “I can see why that would be frustrating… Yeah. Especially when it was Mr. Jones’ intel that helped put it all together, and…”
“I’ll take care of that bald fuck later. ‘Deal with the devil’ my ass… For now, we need to ‘prioritize.’ When your enemy has the ball, do you run in front of them and wait? No. You ‘Tackle’ them. You don’t let them gain a single yard!”
Ani rubbed his eyes, sitting upright as he realized. “What… What did you do, Ugo? Uh, sir.” He froze up a bit at the glaring eye upon him, only to say. “Sorry if I sound fresh, just… You woke me up.”
“Lucky I’m in a good mood, kid… I’ll tell you what I did. I ‘tackled,’ and opened up a ‘hole’ in their ‘defense’ because of it. That golden narcissist second-in-command, Tigran Sins… I got his number, tipped him off right before they were gonna get his penthouse.” He waggled a finger. “But I made sure it was too late for him to tell his boss shit.”
“What?” Ani tilted his head. “I don’t follow… Tell me how that’s brilliant.”
“The guy’ll fly off the handle for anything that puts his Toby in danger. Probably, because this was my plan they wrote over, he’s gonna get caught, and when he does, they’re gonna drive him over a particular ‘bridge’ to head downtown for processing.” As Ugo was speaking, he had begun to demonstrate with pieces of scrap paper that had been lying around, indicating with arrows, dots, and the like. He wasn’t the best artist.
“So what’s gonna happen is, no doubt, he’s gonna put the best hitman of all the scum in this city up there, and he’s gonna just open fire and take a ton of those weaklings down. Fox and his associates will be freed, and then, when it’s all good and disastrous…” He scribbled and scribbled aggressively, then, on either side of the poorly doodled ‘bridge,’ with a small grin. “Me and Rob and everyone else will pour in from the East and West and save the day after those screw-ups! We’ll mop them up and make their ‘new start’ a reminder that they never should have cut me away.”
“You and Rob?” Ani was trying to process all of that, that much hanging over him. “Do you… Not want me involved?”
“You’ll be in, er, what’s the word…” Ugo scratched his head a moment with the pencil, it clearly on the tip of his tongue. The tip snapped against his jawline, and he concluded. “Support! Coordination! That’s the word… I’m not gonna put you right in the line of fire. Can you imagine how that’ll taint the PR? They’ll say I have child soldiers or something… And c’mon. People need to know we have standards.”
Rob showed up soon after, and Ugo followed him into the base’s small kitchen to talk the plan over with him in between bouts of grilling, leaving Ani, frankly, mortified.
This… This guy is fucking crazy! Is he that petty that he’s going to let so many people die just to say I-told-you-so? And not just new VALKYRIE people, or that Rushen Smith guy… No doubt at all, innocent bystanders are gonna get hurt too.
Ani dragged his hands along his forehead, rolling around in his bed and quivering with thoughts rushing through his head.
This is too much… This is way too much! I can’t just… I can’t just let this happen, right? And Rob, Rob needs to know that this is unacceptable too. Maybe we can slip away ahead of time, and… He shook his head. No. I can afford to be anywhere and out of his sight, and make a case for it being part of my role, but Rob… If he breaks formation, Ugo is going to know, and then we’ll both be… I need to leave him out of this. I have to stop this insanity myself, somehow!
He looked towards the sound of the adults talking, then, filled with an uncertainty. He’d said that one of the deadliest assassins in this city would probably be involved in this…
He knew he had to act, but he couldn’t do this alone. He would need to find help some other way.
Barrier Bridge ,early afternoon
Early in the morning, Seido had gotten the call about a job holding down this bridge, that a certain transport vessel was going to be crossing sometime in the afternoon. Said transport vessel carried his rescue target, Fox. Despite all the misgivings he had for the Underground leader, he paid well, and was respectful enough of Seido’s autonomy (for the most part). Plus, due to the nature of this job, its pay is based on success, so he’s going to take this seriously.
So as to not attract too much attention, he looked around for an appropriate vantage point with his phone camera, appearing to merely be taking a picture of the sights, and after finding a suitable location, he walks up to his spot and resumes feigning his tourist act. Finally set up, Seido took a moment to think to himself.
With enough luck, this’ll be an in-and-out job... but the way things have been going lately, I somehow doubt that it’ll be that easy. It feels as if Fox’s expansion has led to more and more interlopers, and of course I’m left to clean up the mess. Though it does sometimes get boring to do the same quiet job ad nauseum, it can also be a little tiresome to have interruptions and obstacles.
While nodding to himself on his preferences of job difficulty, almost on cue, he spotted a young kid, being approached by a different, stranger looking man, and after what looked to be a brief exposition by the kid, the pair both began looking around. It wasn’t hard for him to realize that this meant that the two would be the expected “unexpected company” he would be dealing with today.
Barrier Bridge, moments earlier
His bike skidding to a halt by the side of the road, Kamen Rider Volt took a look around him. Foot traffic on the bridge was as expected, people occasionally walking by and gazing over the rivers, and many cars driving by as people went on their daily commute. Business as usual for Los Fortuna, it seemed. However… he was called here for a reason. ‘Ani Oakey’, a kid whom he’d met in the past, had contacted him, telling him to come here for some important reason related to the shady underground of Los Fortuna’s entertainment district. Still, he couldn’t see the kid anywhere in the crowd around him…
“Volt! Over here!” The hushed voice of the kid came from behind him, and Volt turned around to see him, just barely noticing him from the various passersby on the bridge. Underneath the suit, Max let out a small smile seeing the familiar face.
“Ah, here you are! So, Ani, what did you call me here for? The ED’s underground… what information did you gather, and why exactly?” Volt knew the kid was somewhat of a troublemaker, but he couldn’t have caught onto such information had he not gone quite a bit beyond the realm of what a normal kid could do.
“Um...” Ani said, thinking for a bit. “Well… I’m currently helpin’ out some, uh... people who caught onto this, an’ I thought you’d help out, so… well, I guess I should tell you what I need help with, yeah?”
Volt listened to the kid as he explained the full extent to the situation with growing concern. Ani was probably a stand user, but Volt would have to prod further about what he was doing later, since it almost certainly wasn’t good for him. Still, if this bridge was to be used to transport the ED underground’s ringleader… Volt took a few looks around the bridge, thinking… It was likely that someone from their end would be stationed-
“Volt! Look out!” With all of the strength that the 13 year old kid could muster, Ani tackled Volt, pushing him back just as the sound of a gunshot rang through the air, almost hitting the kid.
The bridge went dead silent for a moment. Volt looked at Ani in shock, but he knew better than anyone that he had to act now. “Thanks for the save, Ani - now, come and get on the bike, now!” As the passersby erupted into screams, Volt shouted at Ani, the two of them rushing towards Volt’s ride. From the angle of the shot, the sniper was on top of the bridge - Volt would have to get there as quickly as possible, and drop Ani off along the way before he could.
Moments later
“No way!” Ani shouted emphatically, in response to Volt’s pleas, as the two of them rode on the back of Volt’s bike, trying to make it past the panicking crowds. “Look, you’re in serious danger here, and I need to protect you! Ani, even if you’re a stand user, this is serious!” Volt needed to get a spot where he could safely let Ani get off before heading for the sniper, but…
“I am serious! Look, without my ants keepin’ watch and warnin’ me, that man’d have shot you! I can help, an’ I will help!” Volt looked at Ani for a bit, before sighing and relenting. Time was running out, and the longer they bickered, the more they were in danger. Besides, if Ani was to try and handle it himself after Max left him behind, the sniper would certainly attack him too, no..?
“I can’t convince you otherwise, can I..?” Both of them knew the answer. “Fine. But I’m not letting you do anything too reckless.” Ani nodded in response.
The rest of the trip was certainly not easy - the sniper they’d been up against had kept on attacking them, and as Ani said, his ants certainly did help the two of them, letting them keep watch of all direction and keep better track of the area around them. Furthermore, as they got closer and closer, the sniper began using his stand -
“-Woah!” Volt shouted out, swerving his bike just in time before a flaming bullet flew past him and Ani, just barely managing to stay upright. Whatever stand the sniper had, he had access to a wide variety of bullets in his arsenal, enough so that neither Volt nor Ani were able to properly prepare for what he sent out. Still, they were getting closer - it wasn’t ideal, but riding a bike on the bridge’s arches was a surprisingly effective way of closing the distance, despite how reckless and dangerous it was!
Still, they were getting closer, enough that they could just barely see the sniper in the distance. “Volt! He’s aimin’ at us!” Ani shouted out. That made sense, since he was a sniper and they were trying to get to him and beat him up, but they still probably needed to do something about it.
“Gotcha! Hang on!” Volt shouted out, leaning forwards and pressing on the pedal even harder, the bike speeding up, and making for one hell of a bumpy ride. At the very least this’d make it harder to shoot them, and he could probably create some light to-
BANG!
Another gunshot rang through the air, the bullet flying towards Ani and Volt… and missing entirely, hitting the ground underneath them. They’d managed to evade quite a few bullets before, but the sniper certainly wasn’t an amateur, and had never missed this much… something was up. Soon, they’d realize what exactly it was - Volt’s bike rapidly slowed down, pulled back by some invisible force at a speed so sudden that both of them were tossed off from the bike.
Shit! Looking back for a moment, Volt could see the bike being tossed back, skidding across the surface of the arch. More importantly, he could see Ani right above him, the light kid practically flying in an arc. He had to do something before he got hurt!
Volt flipped around, arms outstretched, catching Ani just as the two hit the ground, and the sound of scraping metal filled the air. Still, he’d done his job and protected Ani - were it not for him, who knew what’d happen to the kid. Ugh… he should’ve been more insistent on not taking him!
Whatever… he couldn’t change what had happened. Ani was here, and they’d have to fight this sniper.
“Volt...” Ani got out of his grasp, getting up off the ground. Volt followed suit. “It’s lookin’ like we’ll have to go the rest of the way on foot, yeah?” Volt looked back, and the bike wasn’t there anymore - it had likely fallen off of the arch, then.
“Yeah… seems like it.”
The Kamen Rider and the kid looked at the sniper far off in the distance. He’d put a wrench in their plans with whatever that bullet of his was, but they could definitely still get to him. They just had to put in a little bit more effort, and then they’d get to him and stop the ED Underground’s plans for good.
OPEN THE GAME!
Location: On top of Barrier Bridge, a steel arch bridge in the Entertainment District. Here are two reference images for the general architecture. An overhead view and a side view
The bridge itself is extremely long, but the area for the match will be more limited to a 160 by 80 meter area visualized here. This area is a top down view, the bridge and water is hundreds of meters below you in the purple and blue tiles respectively. Each tile is 5 by 5 meters.
The teal rectangles are the arches, and the “X”s are the girders supporting the two sides of the arch. The girders are around 2 meters wide and 2 meters tall. The arches have metal stairs that run down the middle of the arches, represented here by the lines. There are guardrails on the sides of the staircases as well. The underside of the arch is also supported by steel pillars every 20 or so meters and matches up roughly with the side view image.
The arrows denote the direction of the slope of the arch, with the area between the arrows being the highest and center point of the arch.
The players are denoted by the yellow and grey circles and the boss is shown with the purple circle. Where the players are standing is just about halfway to the center of the arch while the boss is at the peak/center of the arch.
Due to food crumbs being left out every so often, there are three nests of ants that have made their homes between the metal plates of the arch. For this match they are effectively 1000s of them in each colony. These colony locations are denoted by the purple 6 pointed stars.
Goal: RETIRE your opponents!
Additional Information:
For the purposes of the match, the lower arches (visible on the side view) and the bridge below are not part of the map. Essentially if you are not on the girders, the arches, or otherwise fall off them and cannot or will not make it back up, that will count as a ring out.
Team Combatant JoJolity
Underground Rat Exodus Anthony ‘Ani’ Oakey and Kamen Rider Volt "See that? That's Morioh's energy! It's all mine! My power!" This entire structure is made of metal, with both of your abilities you should be able to make good use out of it. Use the metal arch and support structures in varied and effective ways!
Path of Four Seido Shuto “Someone's going to have to take one of the last four slices” Four is the path your life has set out for you so embrace it as much as you can. Make as many references to the number “4” in your actions and movements in meaningful ways!
Link to the Official Player Spreadsheet
Link to Match Schedule
As always, if you would like to interact with the tournament community and be among the first to get updates for the tournament, please feel free to PM a member of our Judge staff for an invite to our Official Discord Server!
submitted by Dungeon_Dice to StardustCrusaders [link] [comments]

BBB. Not boring, but not exactly big, but a lot stronger. (Program Review)

Ah yes, another Boring But Big review. Like you guys haven’t read one of these before. I encourage you to keep reading. The program worked great for me.
I’ve completed 4 complete cycles and am on cycle 5 right now. I’ve recently maxed (or close to it) on most of my lifts and thought it was a good time to post this. (So approximately 5 months on the program)
Short Summary: Far from Boring, Far From Big, but had massive strength gains.
​
Category/Lift Starting Stats Current Stats
Age 32 32
Height 5'10" 5'10"
BW 168 180
Bench 280 315 x 3 / 275 x 11
Squat 280* 385*
OHP 175 230**
Deadlift 345 475***
*Video of Squat I had a lot of hip pain when I started squatting. I worked that out with a sports doctor and it hasn't returned since. I'm unsure of what my actual squat is. 385 moved smoothly. I think I maybe had 405 in the tank. We'll just use 385 since it's technically my max lifted.
**Video of 225 OHP because 2 plates was a cool milestone. 230 was much smoother and had much better form from what I could see in the mirror. Wish I would have recorded that, but I'll record the next milestone.
*** Video of Deadlift bad form, need to work on getting hips closer. I’m pulling conventional with a sumo stance, but heavy sumo is new to me as of like 2 weeks ago so I’m working through the kinks.
​
That brings my old totals to:
​
I added:
​
Other:
Started running, mention below a little bit. Some running milestones:
​
So yeah, love the results. As we all know there’s more too it so here’s a summary of what I did and what I was doing before:
​
Before quarantine: (Skip this if you just want the review of BBB)
I mostly was messing around. Trying to come up with my own programs. I was trying to remember what we use to do in high school when I played football. I was strong back when I was a kid so it should work now right? Well, I soon found out that my high school coaches didn’t actually know what they were talking about when it came to lifting.
​
They worked to a point, but soon stopped working and I was spinning my wheels. I was also a chubby 210 pounds. I had some muscle showing, but wasn’t happy with how I looked, felt, or performed in the gym. I went online and started figuring out programs and jumped on Nsuns. I started seeing real progress. I started counting calories and maintained by body weight with the 3,000 calories and running Nsuns.
​
I didn’t do a good job of recording data from this time period, but my approximate lifts when starting nsuns were:
​
​
I ended up getting a coaching job for track and field and started running as well. Got some great times in, but found out that I didn’t have the time with 3 jobs, running, and lifting. Cut the running down to simple conditioning, but might very well get into it someday if I have the time to do so.
Then corona virus happened…
I’m probably not retelling this in the exact order of what happened. I became depressed. No coaching job for the season, no gym, so I kept running. I also decided to grab some odd parts from around the apartment. I had some cinder blocks and an iron pipe. It all weighed approximately 135 pounds. I could squat it, floor press it, deadlift it, and OHP it. So I did. Until I didn’t feel like it anymore because of the depression.
I did pull ups, chins ups, abs, and ran. I eventually added push ups and body weight squats. Sometime during this period I decided that if I couldn’t lift I should lose this fat. So I did. I went from 210 to 168 pounds in about 3 months. I looked great, but could tell I lost a lot of muscle as well.
Sometime during all of this we had massive fires where I live and I was evacuated from my home for multiple weeks. The fire burnt to our yard and was stopped a few hours before taking our house with it. It was the largest fire in state history, but it couldn’t manage to take my house.
Fast forward, I found a gym that opened up outside. I started lifting on some made up stuff just to get back into it. Basically a 3x5 program so I could get back into things. Once I reached the starting maxes you read above I decided I wanted to gain weight again. Of course Boring but Big had to be the thing to do.
I upped my calories slowly, 100 calories a week, until I was back to 3,000. I’ve been gaining about 2 pounds a month on that. I assume it’ll slow down a bit. When weight gain stops, I’ll up my calories again.
All in all I didn’t lift for approximately 3 months out of the year in between Nsuns and BBB.
​
Boring but big set up with accessories:
​
Day 1:
​
Day 2:
​
Day 3:
​
Day 4:
​
Day 5:
​
Sometimes I would substitute lifts depending if someone was using equipment or I felt like changing it up. For example, chest supported rows might be bent over rows or cable machine rows. Hack squats might be hip thrusts. I probably changed up a different accessory once a week for a bit of variety.
​
Diet on program:
I was blessed. The 3rd job that we took on for a local University had the perk of having access to 3 prepared meals a day for free. I used all of them!
I ate about every 3 hours and about 30-40 grams of protein a meal every day. That matched with eating approximately 3,000 calories a day was the only thing I did.
I also stopped drinking all alcohol this year. I just grew out of it for some reason? Maybe it was originally hard to drink when I was counting calories to lose weight and then I just never added back in. I don’t really miss it though.
Drank a gallon of water every day. Sometimes a little more on training days. Sometimes a little less on days that I didn't train. Took a scoop of creatine every day and if I was tired a black coffee or caffeine pill equivalent of a black coffee before working out.
I ate basically the same thing every day. Here’s a solid example:
​
Meal 1:
​
Meal 2:
Or
​
Meal 3:
​
Meal 4:
​
Meal 5:
We eat plant based dinners or occasionally fish meals. An example:
Or
​
Snack:
Most days I would have enough calories left over for a cookie or 2 before bed. Sometimes I didn’t and I would eat a cookie or two and not worry about it. An extra 100-200 calories wouldn’t be a bad thing when trying to gain weight.
​
What’s next:
It isn’t broken don’t fix it right? More BBB until it no longer works.
​
New goals for this year:
​
Advice:
submitted by Frodozer to weightroom [link] [comments]

30 M / 5'2" / 136.6-114.6 lbs. Lost 22 lbs through CICO and weight training.

TL;DR Album to all pictures
DEMOGRAPHIC AND SUMMARY STATS
30 M 5'2" 115 lbs.
Started at 137 and finally got down to my goal weight of 115. Weight 114.6 this morning/one week later, so I'm pretty confident I'm truly at my goal weight.
Not sure where my body fat percentage is. Waist measurement says about 11%, but the 7 site calipers say 7.2% but I don't think that's right because I cut all the way down to 103lbs for wrestling when I was 18 and my body fat % was 8%. But then again, that was mostly water weight so who really knows.
Back in 2018, I dropped from 126 lbs to 115 lbs. Bulked up to 125 lbs. Stopped tracking for a year and eventually found myself at 130. Got down to 119 lbs before I had a kid and stopped working out for a while and found myself back at 130 lbs. Got down to 123 lbs in March and then the pandemic happened so I couldn't work out and ended up just sitting at home drinking Yoo-Hoo and eating Cereal all day.
So in September, I looked in the mirror and noticed I could see my gut bulging out through my shirt and decided enough was enough. I went to the gym near my house, signed up for a membership, and got back into the routine of things. At an average of 1.06 lbs/week, I eventually got to 115 lbs. I decided on this weight because this is where I was my senior year of high school. I was pretty fit, in wrestling, and consider this a good weight for my size. Sure enough, I feel way better, my pants once again require a belt, and I look good in the mirror. Now I can say I accomplished something during quarantine.
PICS
I am an idiot and forgot to take a starting picture at 136.6 lbs. Only comparison is a picture where I was at 125 lbs and the day I hit my goal weight. Crazy how much of a difference just 10 lbs of fat makes!
 
Before-ish and After comparison. Forgot to take a before picture
 
Chart of my progress! Only a couple days I wasn't able to weigh in, but nothing chart breaking. I love this chart because it shows how much your day-to-day goes up and down and why you should focus on your weekly averages, measurements, and progress photos. Those plateaus near the end were making me nervous, but I remembered to trust my calorie count and exercise. Sure enough, it caught up in a major way at the end!
 
Link to my TDEE Tracker. Fantastic spreadsheet all around. Not only does it show your weekly and monthly averages, but is great for finding your TDEE, tracking trends, and finding out when you can expect to hit your goal weight. I even added a sheet to chart your progress. Feel free to download and use for yourself!
 
BONUS! Me at 126 lbs January 2018. Before any kind of weight loss or exercise.
DIET
Diet was 1,200 calories/day (but it was probably closer to 1,500 due to me grazing on grapes throughout the week). M-F ate high protein ~110 grams. On weekends ate whatever as long as I stayed in my calorie count.
Men are generally discouraged from going below 1,500 calories, and I agree. The only reason I went with 1,200 is because I am in the bottom 1% in terms of height and, therefore, had a low enough TDEE that 1,200 would be just fine. Even at the end, losing 1 lb a week is 0.8% of my body weight which is well in range of healthy weight loss.
 
MY MONDAY-FRIDAY MEALS
 
Meal 1/Breakfast - 674 Calories / 21.6g Fat / 65.1g Carbs / 56.3g Protein
  • Denver Omlette ~ 327 calories / 21.1g Fat / 5.3g Carbs / 25.7 g Protein
  • Apple ~125 Calories / 0.4g Fat / 33.8g Carbs / 0.6 g Protein
  • 2 Oikos Greek Yogurts ~ 220 Calories / 0g Fat / 26g Carbs / 30 g Protein
Meal 2/Lunch - 563 Calories / 22.9g Fat / 36.6g Carbs / 53.6 g Protein
  • Quick Tuna Salsa Wrap ~ 361 Calories / 7.9g Fat / 26.4g Carbs / 46.6 g Protein
  • 2 Sticks of Celery ~ 12 Calories / 0.0g Fat / 0.2g Carbs / 0.0 g Protein
  • Peanut Butter ~ 190 Calories / 21.1g Fat / 5.3g Carbs / 25.7 g Protein
 
Total: 1237 Calories / 44g Fat / 101.7g Carbs / 110g Protein
 
These, of course, are estimates. Could be more or less as I traded out my original wraps for a low-carb wrap to save on calories. Tuna in water was traded out for buffalo flavored tuna to make it edible as I was gagging on the straight tuna for some reason. Might have raise the calories and lowered the protein just a bit, but I consider this a much, much better alternative. Peanut butter was switched to Honey flavored to make it smoother and tastier. Calories were about the same give or take 10.
Snacks For snacks, I usually just grazed on grapes. Didn't really track them but I usually went through a 3 pound bag a week. So about 130 calories/Day. Weekends I probably snacked on whatever was around so it's hard to tell. My weekend calorie count was definitely higher than what is shown on the graph. I know this is probably bad, but taking things a bit easier on the weekends really helps make the diet easier to stick to and since I was still losing weight at my target rate, I don't suspect I was over-indulging. If that strategy amounted to one or two extra weeks, so be it.
EXCERCISE
Worked out M-F using the PHAT (Power Hypertrophy Adaptive Training) program.
I'm lazy so I didn't change anything out with the exception of doing standing calf raises in place of Donkey Calf Raises because I, for the life of me, cannot figure out how to do Donkey Calf Raises with anything more than one plate. Or even how to do that excercise correctly.
I made sure to drag myself to the gym every day. Even if there were days where I had something to do in the afternoon, I still made sure to go if that meant I could only do just two excercises. Very rarely did I have to miss an entire day.
 
Monday - Upper Body Power
  • Bent over or Pendlay rows - 3 sets of 3-5 reps
  • Weighted Pull ups - 2 sets of 6-10 reps
  • Rack chins - 2 sets of 6-10 reps
  • Flat dumbbell presses - 3 sets of 3-5 reps
  • Weighted dips - 2 sets of 6-10 reps
  • Seated dumbbell shoulder presses - 3 sets of 6-10 reps
  • Cambered bar curls - 3 sets of 6-10 reps
  • Skull crushers - 3 sets of 6-10 reps
 
Tuesday - Lower Body Power
  • Squats - 3 sets of 3-5 reps
  • Hack Squats - 2 sets of 6-10 reps
  • Leg extensions - 2 sets of 6-10 reps
  • Stiff legged deadlifts - 3 sets of 5-8 reps
  • Glute ham raises or lying leg curls - 2 sets of 6-10 reps
  • Standing calf raise - 3 sets of 6-10 reps
  • Seated calf raise - 2 sets of 6-10 reps
 
Wednesday - Back & Shoulders Hypertrophy
  • Bent over or Pendlay rows - 6 sets of 3 reps with 65-70% of normal 3-5 rep max
  • Rack chins - 3 sets of 8-12 reps
  • Seated cable row - 3 sets of 8-12 reps
  • Dumbbell rows or shrugs bracing upper body against an incline bench - 2 sets of 12-15 reps
  • Close grip pulldowns - 2 sets of 15-20 reps
  • Seated dumbbell presses - 3 sets of 8-12 reps
  • Upright rows - 2 sets of 12-15 reps
  • Side lateral raises with dumbbells or cables - 3 sets of 12-20 reps
 
Thursday - Lower Body Hypertrophy
  • Squats - 6 sets of 3 reps with 65-70% of normal 3-5 rep max
  • Hack squats - 3 sets of 8-12 reps
  • Leg presses - 2 sets of 12-15 reps
  • Leg extensions - 3 sets of 15-20 reps
  • Romanian deadlifts - 3 sets of 8-12 reps
  • Lying leg curls - 2 sets of 12-15 reps
  • Seated leg curls - 2 sets of 15-20 reps
  • Donkey calf raises - 4 sets of 10-15 reps
  • Seated calf raises - 3 sets of 15-20 reps
 
Friday - Chest & Arms Hypertrophy
  • Flat dumbbell presses - 6 sets of 3 reps with 65-70% of normal 3-5 rep max
  • Incline dumbbell presses - 3 sets of 8-12 reps
  • Hammer strength chest press - 3 sets of 12-15 reps
  • Incline cable flyes - 2 sets of 15-20 reps
  • Cambered bar preacher curls - 3 sets of 8-12 reps
  • Dumbbell concentration curls - 2 sets of 12-15 reps
  • Spider curls bracing upper body against an incline bench - 2 sets of 15-20 reps
  • Seated tricep extension with cambered bar - 3 sets of 8-12 reps
  • Cable pressdowns with rope attachment - 2 sets of 12-15 reps
  • Cable kickbacks - 2 sets of 15-20 reps
 
Saturday & Sunday
  • REST [Normally, you would rest on Day 3 and 7, but I decided it was more convenient and I would be better able to stick to a M-F workout]
NEXT STEPS
Going to try and maintain for a few weeks and find what my TDEE is. Then slowly bulk up until I'm at a comfortable spot for the summer. Going to shoot for just 0.5lbs/week due to my size so I don't gain a lot of fat.
Any questions, feel free to ask! I love talking about this stuff.
submitted by danimalforlife to fitness30plus [link] [comments]

An Angry Atheist - A fairly Wordy Essay

When I was 25 years old, I finally admitted something to myself that I had long suspected, but had been terrified to acknowledge. I do not believe in God. I had been raised Roman Catholic, in which I had been baptized at the ripe age of 2 weeks. It wouldn’t be inaccurate to describe my parents’ religious beliefs as being almost orthodox. They were far right, almost fundamentalist in their approach to the religion. It was drilled into me from the time that I was a child that I must believe in this God, and that the only way to salvation was through this one true church, which I was truly blessed to be born into.
As the years passed, I witnessed countless contradictions between what the church (and even my parents and other loved ones) claimed to believe and teach, and what they actually practiced in real life. Questions arose in my mind as to why Abraham, Moses, The Apostles, etc were all allowed to have direct evidence of God’s existence, but I was required to take the whole thing on faith. How come miracles were so much more subtle now than they were in the past? Anytime I would bring up a question like this to a person who should have been able to provide even a small amount of insight (a priest, my parents, etc) I was always met with some form of circular reasoning that always came back to, “I guess that you’ll have to ask God about that someday.” This was frustrating because I was asking God about at the present time, and I was asking the people in my life who should have been the most knowledgeable about this subject. It was strange to me that there were no answers to these kinds of questions. Had I been the first person to ask them?
This of course was a ridiculous notion. There were plenty of people who were asking these questions, the problem for me at the time was a lack of exposure to the concept. The reality was that despite the fact that the religion had claimed to be the place to find such answers, I learned that it was really little more than a globally operated snake oil business. An organization that had figured out how to avoid the derogatory labels like, “Cult,” or “Con Job,” or, “Scheme,” by labeling themselves as a religion. An institution that had convinced me that I was sick with a disease that only they were allowed to diagnose, and that I could only be cured with a treatment that only they were allowed to administer. This was something I was bullied into taking entirely on faith. Eventually I would reach a conclusion. Despite the fact that these religions could be demonstrated to have a positive influence on the world in the way of charity and social work, their negative effects on society and even the human condition were not being addressed in any meaningful way, and far outnumbered and outranked any supposed good they were doing.
Then, shortly around my 25th birthday, I had an epiphany of sorts. I was at a particular low point in my life. I had been subjected to multiple dejections and rejections in my life. I was an awkward person who didn’t have many friends. I had dropped out of college after only one semester, and had no plans to go back. I was working jobs that invited negativity and were very difficult to find purpose or even an identity in, such as collections or customer service. It was then that I lost a close friend. Someone I had come to recognize as an older brother I had never had as a child. This would become a tipping point in my life, and my ability to believe in a God.
I had lost people before, of course. When I was fourteen, my grandfather had succumbed to Parkinson’s Disease. It was a tragic moment, and possibly the first time that I suspected a flaw in my religious teachings. My grandfather had been one of the most intelligent people I had ever met. He worked for the Canadian government, and could tell you where to find any piece of information in his office even long after he had retired. He was nearly impossible to beat in a game of Cribbage and had learned to play the piano entirely by ear. Parkinson’s took this all away from him. His mind was still there, but his body would no longer play along. This intelligent man was prisoner within his own skin, forced to watch as even the most personal and private autonomy was stripped of him. My brother and I flew to where he lived that summer to see him one last time before he had passed. The only words he was able to say to us for the entire time we were there was, “My God, you’re so tall!” His passing shook me very deeply. I found it difficult to understand how a loving God would do this to someone like my Grandfather. My parents told me that God had a plan for everything and that we would just have to trust that plan. Even at the time I thought that this wasn’t a sufficient answer, because it seemed like a cheap cop-out for God. I felt like we deserved an explanation for the reason why God’s great plan involved the debasement, and inarguably the torture of our Grandpa. Eventually I allowed myself to find comfort in the fact that he had died. The death was an end to a suffering I literally couldn’t imagine. He had lived a long, and fulfilled life, not considering how it ended.
The death of my friend was a very different affair. I met him while working at the collection agency. He was on my team, and he and another eventual friend on the team invited me to go to karaoke after work one night. This was the beginning of a long friendship. We visited the bar nearly every week, multiple days (when karaoke was available). The two were older than me, but accepted me almost immediately into their group. My friends and I were practically celebrities at the bar thanks to our enthusiasm about the weekly karaoke. My friend, (who I’ll call Andy for the sake of the convenience) was a bit like a toned-down Glenn Quagmire from the TV show, “Family Guy.” He was lecherous, a bit immature, and was the kind of guy who seemed like he was never going to settle down. As I got to know him over the next year or so, it became clear that there was more to this person than what he advertised. Andy had a child with a woman on the east coast. He was working to have a better relationship with his daughter and her mother. He started seeing a woman who started making an honest man out of him, finally. As his relationship with this woman grew steadily more concrete, he took on a job as a manager and team leader at the office, in which he was given a lot of responsibility. He was turning his life around. Then that life ended in a tragic accident involving alcohol and an ATV. Once again, God’s plan had left me with more questions than answers. How could God’s plan require the death of this man, who had just started making a meaningful effort to retrack his life? Who had just started to be a better father to his daughter?
It was at this point that I finally realized something. My epiphany. No amount of prayer on my part had ever demonstrably changed my reality. When you are a young person in the religion, you tend to believe that God is some sort of genie who will grant your wishes if only you ask politely enough and believe. I was no exception. When I was young, I prayed for many selfish things, “Please God, give me a Game Boy for my birthday.” “Please God, let me pass this test I forgot to study for.” As time passed, I realized that maybe these selfish prayers were simply that. Selfish. So, I started to raise my head to the sky and ask God over and over to give me signs or a demonstration. I had begged to have a better understanding of why his plan required so much pain in my life. I wasn’t getting any answers, not from him nor the church. So why was I even bothering to ask? Was there even a difference between asking god for help and not doing so? I resolved then and there to finally quit talking to God. I stopped praying at night, and stopped going to church. In time, I even managed to break the habit of not asking for God’s help in the moments of desperation. The result was nothing short of an improvement in my life, and the dawn of a long seated, previously unrealized, and furious anger.
Those two might seem like contradictions, and at time they certainly felt as such. I was doing better for myself, that much was for sure. I started looking more seriously into certain problems I had been ignoring (mostly by praying for solutions to come to me.) A problem with asking God for help with an endeavor is that it can be easy to give up on the endeavor when it doesn’t seem like God is helping. It’s easy to buy into the idea that this wasn’t God’s plan, and then move on rather than persist. How long, and how many times had I prayed to God for help with my addiction to cigarettes? But it wasn’t until I had given up on the idea of God that I would find the strength to make this a reality (many years later).
How much of my life had been wasted on my knees in prayer to someone else’s imaginary friend? How long had I asked for help on what could best be described as a dead line? Effectively speaking to a dial tone? 25 years was the answer. My parents had been exceptionally cruel to me and some of my siblings, especially where the religion had been concerned. Their parenting method was defined by the fact that we lived on a ranch, far enough from the next living soul that no one could hear you scream. A concept that was tested very thoroughly throughout my eighteen years there, especially when they thought the religion was being disrespected. My father would lecture me for hours on subjects such as why Jesus died on the cross and how I was shitting on that sacrifice with my lazy and disrespectful ways before beating me. We would later find out that most of my lazy and disrespectful ways were brought about by a significant hearing loss (something that was genetic from my mother’s side of the family. She had worn hearing aids for as long as I could remember). My father has never properly acknowledged this, though, or the fact that he beat me raw multiple times throughout my childhood for what would amount to a misunderstanding on his part, while using a justification he got from baseless fairytales from bronze-age Palestine.
After nearly a year past the point of abandoning the religion, and watching my life drastically improve as I grew more confident with myself and my ability to be in complete and total control of my own life, I finally began to notice the anger. I finally realized I had new questions that deserved answers. How had I managed to go so long with a mindset of refusing to accept or even acknowledge the reality that I had supported the Catholic Church, even long after the evidence of their multiple scandals involving sexual predator priests had come to light? Before losing the religion, the idea of priests engaging in that type of behavior was something I had been taught to shrug off as a devil-influenced conspiracy meant to bring down the church. How could the people that I cared about, my family and friends, continue to do so as well?
After I came out to my family as an atheist, I started speaking out to them about these kinds of matters. I wanted to expose them to the actual reality that this church was far more complicated and even villainous than we had always been led to believe. In my mind, my family is just as much a victim of the church as any altar server in Cardinal Law’s care. But they didn’t want to hear about these things. They rejected even the ideas. They started telling me that I was angry. I seemed so angry. Why was I so angry with God and his church? Look at what losing God had done to me. It had turned me into such an angry person.
At first, this insulted me. It felt insulting to have these legitimate concerns swept away by the people whom I thought I could depend on; whom I loved and cared deeply for. They weren’t wrong, though. I was angry. I still am. Anger is the appropriate emotion to feel when you think about losing so much of your life to a cult. It’s the correct way to feel when you think about how you’ll never get that time or that money back. I couldn’t even sue to get the money back from the church if I wanted to. It’s an appropriate emotion to feel when you consider that the organization still counts you as a member despite your obvious disgust with it, and departure from it; all so they can continue to inflate their numbers (and their advertised importance in society). It’s the emotion that you should feel when you consider how this same cult is installing groundwork and habits in the minds of its followers that allow said followers to gleefully embrace contradictions with the observable reality that they live in.
Angry is how we should feel when we look at our society in the United States of America and see that we are being demanded to pay more respect to peoples’ supposed belief in a 2000-year-old desert fairy tale than we are asked to pay in regards to the observable realities of climate change, the coronavirus, world hunger, the plastic waste crisis, an inevitable drinking water shortage that will cause more hardship and pain than this world will even begin to be able to understand. Anger is the only emotion that I can convey when I consider how long we’ve known about these problems and refused the responsibility for. Almost always the arguments against these realities stem from, or otherwise grow within religion.
I am indeed angry when I see that all a con man like Donald Trump has to do is march to a church and take a picture of himself holding a bible upside-down to get the religious “flocks” to bleat their way over to him and fawn over him like he’s a second coming of Christ (something that many people have even outright claimed). It makes me angry to be criticized for my anger, when everywhere I look (all around the world) I see religion being ultimately defined by their angers and hatreds. It angers me to see the endless religious conflicts in every avenue of society that either directly endanger or baselessly discriminate against people based on whether or not they believe in the subjectively correct interpretation of God.
I’m angry at the institutions who take peoples’ personal beliefs in God hostage, and demand that their ability to believe in God has to first pass through a filter of 2000-years-old traditions, books, and ideologies. Warping this private sense into something that benefits only the organization and almost never the individual. Evidenced by the millions of dollars that the Catholic Church invests in defending itself in sexual abuse lawsuits every year while their poorest communities are having to fund and repair old one-room churches themselves, separate from the money they put in the collection plate each week. Or how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons) secretly held over 100 billion dollars of tithings rather than actually investing it back into the church or their congregations. Or how the church of Scientology, also demonstrably worth billions of dollars, received over thirty loans from the COVID stimulus bill.
I’m angry when I think about the abuse which I endured that was encouraged and enabled by the cult I was raised in. I am furious when I think about how what happened to me is practically peanuts compared to what is still happening to many other people in this world. I am angry when I think about how, right now, there’s a young man somewhere afraid to tell anyone about what a priest did to him as a child because he might get sent to hell for ratting on the church. I’m angry whenever I hear a child say they are scared that their friends are going to burn for eternity because they aren’t in the right church.
I’m angry at American Christianity for demanding that they alone have the right to dictate which members of society should be allowed and which should be denied, but then become violent and antagonistic the moment they are shoved under the same microscope. I’m angry at these religions who claim that their religious freedom is defined by denying the same levels of freedom to people and even entire groups of people they don’t tolerate, such as the LGBTQ community, secular organizations, women who need bodily autonomy, etc. I’m angry when I see that I have no representation in my government because openly having no religion is a career death sentence for anyone running for office, and allows for religious matters to take precedence over matters of actual importance in the highest levels of our government.
I am an angry atheist. I look back on the history of the world, especially where religion is concerned, and I see the direction it’s headed. It’s impossible for me to deny the role that religion has had. A destructive influence that led to nearly every war and uncountable acts of cruelty (the crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the dark ages, or the Salem Witch Trials, and the Holocaust, just to name a few). I am angry when I think about how people engulfed in these religions take their single most important belief on faith, and then never learn how to reliably demand evidence for their lesser beliefs. I believe this concept is the answer to the question of how almost half of the United States can doubt the results of the 2020 US presidential election. They’ve been taught to take on faith the claims of their authority figures. This is devastating for the rest of us who have to share space with them despite the fact we can not share their beliefs, their faith, or their delusions. Take for example, the coronavirus. Despite experts saying that the best way for us to combat the pandemic is to wear masks, wash often, and practice social distancing; a high majority of Christians in this country refuse to do so, citing their liberties and saying that they cannot be forced to follow those instructions. In doing so, they are forcing the rest of us to embrace an obviously flawed and failing system of herd immunity that will never actually stop the virus. The parallels could not be more obvious.
I understand that religion is very important to many people in this country, and the world. It’s not my right or authority to take that away from anyone. That doesn’t mean that we do not have the capacity or the right to demand equality in regards to how these religions (as in the actual institutions themselves) are permitted to occupy space with us. We are within our rights to demand that these religions embrace reality in desperate times such as those we are currently living through. Many religious groups in this country (and in the world) claim they have the right to gather in groups for services that will help spread the virus. I argue they do not have that right, given that an enormous amount of the virus’ spread can be linked to church services or meetings. We grant rights in this society right up until we have demonstration that something should not be a right. I would say that churches currently flying in the face of the pandemic and modern health experts are inarguably forcing hands. There has to be a limit on religious gatherings until the pandemic is under control. I currently do not see a good argument as to why religious groups who pay nothing into this society in the way of taxes (and in fact, are highly immune from participating in any “give” part of our society, but delight in being a part of every “take” that they can wiggle their way into) deserve special privileges that any other actual business that is forced to have licenses, pay taxes, and in those ways have actually earned a place in society are denied. This is not a call to open up those places of business. This is a call to close down the churches, mosques, temples, synagogues and other places of worship until the pandemic is under control. If we can close down bars and restaurants, we can close down the most non-essential non-businesses in our country as well.
It’s also past time that the scientific community in the United States and around the world do something that should have been done long ago: declare these modern religions as mythology, moving them into the same categories that every other religion has moved into. There is no good reason for the Abrahamic beliefs to be given such a high pedestal while we make fun movies about the Norse gods fighting aliens with the Avengers. Nor the Hindu gods, etc. There is just as little evidence for these other religions and they have had over 3 or 4 millennia to actually demonstrate their claims. People can and will continue believing in these myths, but the scientific communities of the world cannot continue paying silence. It is becoming more and more dangerous with every passing year. If the religions want to remove the moniker of “Mythology” someday in the future, they can always present actual demonstrable evidence of their claims. We’ll keep waiting, just as we have for thousands of years. We simply shouldn’t have to entertain the delusions any further, as if these hordes of grown adults are children whose feelings we are sparing about the non-existence of Santa Claus. We shouldn’t have to continue giving a platform of authority to these institutions.
Religions have long made themselves victims when they are actually the aggressors, despite the fact that they have never in all of human history had a niche in human society as safe or as beneficial to them as they do now. That is what they fight to protect. Not their cultures or beliefs, but this niche in which they are protected from all manners of prosecution or accountability for their wrongdoings. A niche that acts as a shield from ever facing real responsibility for their misdeeds. One that provides them harbor from ever having to demonstrate their claims. These institutions have not provided a valid reason for which they deserve such protections, they simply demand them. I believe that it’s high time we remove those protections and return our world and its societies’ focus to progress rather than regress.
submitted by psychwardhypno to thegreatproject [link] [comments]

I am 27 years old make $42k + bonuses, live in Shanghai, China and work in Tech.

FROM A NEWLY REFORMED FREE SPENDER AND NON-PLANNER
I’m excited to see what you guys think of my income and spending. I feel like I am making less but spending more than the average here. Also intended to be a comfort to people who may not have a high income or net worth and have made some mistakes in the past.
I have only actually started getting serious about my life and actively saving and investing in Nov 2019 because I had a very loose attitude towards money before (detailed below in my income progression) and several medical procedures (dental is expensive and not covered by insurance).
All numbers converted to USD at current rates
​
Section One: Assets and Debt
Retirement Balance: $65k
⁃ $25k in a government retirement fund in my home country (contributed 2 years during my first job). This will continue to grow at 3-5% managed by the government.
⁃ $40k in a retirement fund (partially inherited). This will be a lump sum payment at the end of the vesting period (around age 55). The principal is 2k/year, and the interest is the annualised market growth rate.
Liquid assets which I do not count as retirement savings: $20k
⁃ $12k in investment funds that are managed for growth and I do not want to sell in market cycles. I contribute to this account every quarter or so. I consider this part of my long term investments for an eventual home purchase. This is more bond and fixed income heavy.
⁃ $3k in bank account. I don’t keep too much in here because I have stable income, good insurance, and what I consider to be low living costs. This is “just in case” money.
⁃ $5k in liquid holdings that I am waiting to sell in market cycles, what I call “betting money”. The profits can go to either the other investment funds, be put back into the market, or into bank account as cash. This is pure stocks and ETFs. I’ve made about 12% on this money this year so far. If push comes to shove, I will liquidate all this.
Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it?
Yes, both of my parents have PhDs and are very Asian conservative in that good education is the only way to success. I studied a double degree in 2 business disciplines, but I wish I had studied a STEM degree. I am considering to do a STEM Masters in Western Europe because it is the cheapest option for me, the schools are good, and I loved living in Europe.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parents educate you about finances?
My parents did not have conversations with me about money except for guilt because “they worked so hard for it”, but at the same time, spending on ridiculous things for me and my brother because they didn’t want us to lose out in school/extra circulars. All North Asians know what I am talking about. This became a lack of appreciation for the value of a dollar and also lack of understand of what “hard work” actually means because they say they work so hard, but then why do they spend so freely?
What was your first job and why did you get it?
My first job was an assistant in a fashion magazine when I was in university because I liked fashion and creative publications! Unpaid but covered food and transport + copious amounts of generous PR packages from luxury beauty and fashion brands. I even got to do the fashion week circuit in London and Paris once!
Did you worry about money growing up?
I never worried about money growing up, but I was very conscious about money guilt from constant reminders from parents/grandparents that they save and scrimp on themselves to offer the best food for the kids, regardless of whether it is factual. I remember never asking for things from parents because I will be made to feel bad later on if I made an unrelated mistake or did something they didn’t like, and I did not think I “deserved” it. If I asked for a piece of clothing and got it, they would emphasise how much it costs and I better not do badly in my exams later on. If I didn’t do so well, the message would be “shouldn’t have bought you that thing, you don’t deserve it because you didn’t do well”.
Do you worry about money now?
Now, I am the opposite in that I spoil myself a lot more than the average person because I feel like I need to “compensate” but then immediately feel guilty about doing that because “I don’t deserve it”. I also feel anxious that I am not keeping up with my peers in terms of income and asset accumulation. An element of keeping up the appearance of doing well comes into play, especially in a city like Shanghai where the pace is so fast and everybody talks about money all the time. I feel anxious to accumulate money and ask for more compensation, but also I don’t dare to because I feel like I don’t deserve it.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?
I became responsible for myself when I graduated university. I have some safety net in that I can always move home and they would at least cover rent + food. They have sizeable assets and would very likely pass on property to both my brother and I. My partner’s family also has a sizeable amount of property and land, which will be partially passed to him.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain.
Part of the life insurance fund (~$30k) was paid for by my parents, I took over paying it when I graduated university. I also receive dividends (~6% annual rate), which I reinvest, from my investment funds.
​
Section Two: Income
Income Progression: I have been working for 4.5 years since graduating Bachelors. I graduated a bit later because I took time off in the middle to do internships.
I started with an expat contract, I would be sent to different countries at the company’s will. After 2 years I left. It was a very cushy corporate job in a very bloated organisation that does not really allow much learning because I was viewed as temporary by each team I worked with, hence no investment in training and development. I was also spending 70% of my time on politics to try to get good placements/dealing with stakeholders. There was no real leadership or management from any person towards me and I felt like I was socialising and moving a lot but not learning so much. I was also getting emotionally drained, drinking too much, and shopping too much from boredom of my days and loneliness of having to move to new timezones often. I took this job because I wanted to get out of my home country in a non financially stressful way. I saved nothing these 2 years even though my actual out of pocket living expenses were extremely low.
Took a massive pay cut but switched to a different industry and this allowed me to stay in China. I have done internships in this industry when I was in university. It is a high growth industry and the role allows me to work with diverse clients across diverse projects. I see this role, and also Shanghai as a city, as starting points for building my network, as I have a lot of client and partner interactions, and exploring what I want to do “when I grow up”. I got about a 30% raise 1.5 years into the job; the salary stated is my current salary.
Main Job Monthly Take Home: $3,250 / month after taxes. The only deduction from my pay check is tax. Health insurance is a private one provided by my company that is separate from salary. I do not have any option to contribution to company/state retirement plans.
Side Gig Monthly Take Home: Very variable, but averaged out ~$600 / month. I am in the midst of interviewing/deciding on a freelance consulting gig that would pay half of my main job salary (also related to my main job), but I am not sure if I can handle the workload.
​
Section Three: Expenses (all numbers are monthly)
I live with my partner, we split all household expenses and eating out bills 50/50. He takes care of most of the rent through his work contract and in exchange, I do the mental work of managing our household like ordering air filters and groceries, organising cleaning services and managing our landlord. His portion of the rent is more than our monthly household expenses so I think it’s fair division.
Excluding his housing allowance and other non-cash benefits from his main job, we make about the same take-home pay from our main jobs. However, he has a significant side gig. I also know that he invests in some funds and is paying off some student loans (~$15k, all without interest). We have fully separate accounts and do a tally at the end of every month to decide who needs to pay whom for that month’s shared expenses.
___________
Day 1: Friday
07:45: Wake up for work. My partner already made a breakfast sandwich for me to bring to work. I quickly get ready and bike to the metro. ($0.42 on pre-loaded metro card)
09:00: Arrive at work! Buy 2 eggs from a convenience store to eat together with the breakfast sandwich. ($0.60) I continue working on a proposal for a prospective client and deal with some developer issues.
12:15: Break for lunch. I am going out for lunch today because my hand and elbow are injured which makes it hard to cook quickly, also because I was lazy. I meet my partner for lunch at a canteen as he is nearby for a meeting and we will go to the doctor later together to check my injuries. I get a rice with some veggies and chicken ($6.40) and I buy coffee for both of us since he is coming with me to the doctor for the 3rd time this week ($5.70).
13:45: Doctor goes well, my wound is healing well and my elbow is not getting worse. ($270 covered by insurance) Back to work for both of us.
16:00: Afternoon hunger crash. I eat an apple I brought with me from home, and get a Coke Zero from the work fridge.
18:45: Leaving office a bit earlier than usual today because it is Friday and I worked until 8pm yesterday on this proposal. I am supposed to meet my freelance client for dinner but I am pooped, we make plans to meet next week on-site instead. I take the metro to my bike and bike home. ($0.42 on pre-loaded metro card)
19:15: Arrive at home and my friend drops off some small batch sauces I ordered from her home kitchen ($7.20). I will use them to grill a fish tonight. Cooking is my self care. I use my one non-injured hand to prep the ingredients and cook. I eat it with some rice and veggies, and Iliza Shlesinger on Netflix.
22:40: Finally go to bed after successfully resisting the Friday night fomo and playing around on the Internet.
Day 2: Saturday
10:00: Wake up and make coffee at home with our Nespresso machine. I have some oats with fruit for a light breakfast because I am going to a dimsum later at a fancy hotel and I am gonna EAT ALL THE THINGS.
10:45: Go to the hair salon for a wash and blow dry. (Included in the monthly subscription)
11:45: Arrive at dimsum. It took us 4 weeks to get this table because they are having a promotion so I am adamant that we have to order everything. We are a table of 6 and we pay $24 per person. ($24)
15:30: Bike to a coffee shop to meet a woman I met at another event. She is starting a new business in the same field as my side gig and we discuss some ideas. I get an Oatly latte. ($3.70)
17:30: Arrive at nail salon to get a quick pedicure. ($23.70)
18:45: Arrive at home and eat a quick dinner of stir fry chicken and vegetables with some leftover rice from yesterday. I am going to a reception from the British Consulate later and there will be lots of alcohol. I do not want to get drunk.
20:00: Arrive at the event at a fancy pants hotel. Get increasingly happy with British “champagne”. I make some contacts for my side gig. My partner is also here with some of his business partners (we had planned to be here together but I was late).
22:00: Leave the event before I get too tipsy with bubbly. We met a bunch of people we see at these events and decide to have a night cap at a great Sichuan cocktail bar nearby. I get a gin tonic with a spicy kick ($12.50). We walk home from the bar.
Day 3: Sunday
11:00: Sunday is my mental rest day, a day that I keep free from any plans so that I can breathe before the next week starts. I decide to go to the gym to powerwalk on the treadmill and do some lower body and core work since I can’t do much upper body work.
13:00: I get home and my partner has made a curry for lunch. We eat and then I take a quick body shower.
15:00: Cycle to a temple for some quiet time, I buy a little charm bracelet for luck, also as a donation to the temple. ($14)
18:00: I have my monthly facial at home. ($50)
20:00: Facial done! I call my parents for our weekly Sunday call while eating some soba and miso soup. This is something we have started doing lately given we have had a difficult relationship all through my childhood and early adult years.
Day 4: Monday
07:45: Wake up for work. Today is a quiet office that I can use to plan and structure some projects. Since I have nothing urgent today, I take this opportunity to make some food for lunch and dinner. I roast some duck breasts and root vegetables in the oven. I also bring an apple and some grapes for snacks.
09:00: Bike to work and get some breakfast from the convenience store ($1.50)
12:30: Eat lunch in the work kitchen while reading what’s left of The Economist from yesterday. I go downstairs to check that my bike is still there and not stolen or fallen over from other people not knowing how to park.
13:00: Go to the doctor yet again to check my injuries, for the 4th time. It seems to be ok after this and I can just do all the wound dressing and physiotherapy work at home on my own for the next weeks. ($270 covered by insurance)
16:00: The regular mid-afternoon snack time. Apple and grapes from home. No coke for me today.
19:30: Leave office. Feeling faint from the lack of food so I get some biscuits from the convenience store downstairs ($0.70) I have a problem with food that I always try to be super clean and super healthy but I end up starving my body and oscillate between starvation (eating 1.5 meals a day) and binge eating (eating 4-5 meals a day). I am trying to get over this mental hurdle of “not eating bad things”. I also have low blood pressure and blood sugar so it’s really unhealthy.
20:30: Arrive at home and eat the second half of the duck and veggies from the morning, plus left over things from yesterday.
21:30: Go to the hair salon to wash my hair. (Included in the monthly subscription)
22:30: Prepare some lunch for tomorrow and pass out in bed.
Day 5: Tuesday
07:30: Wake up slightly earlier because I have some client meetings today and would need to be more polished today.
08:50: Arrive at work , beating the morning rush! I took the metro here. ($0.42 on pre-loaded metro card)
13:00: Eat my packed lunch. Have a coffee with my colleague at the Starbucks across from our office. ($4.50) I am trying to suss out whether she is going to leave the company and if so, what my move could be.
15:10: Client meetings back to back all afternoon. I take a break in the middle and get a banana from the store downstairs ($0.30)
18:00: Start some research for my potential freelance consulting gig. They wanted to hire me outright as a full-time employee but I am not 100% sure of how commercially viable their product yet, plus it is extremely early stage. I make a plan to meet the guy on Friday at their office.
20:00: Another team orders dinner for their evening meeting. I get an extra uneaten bento box from them for dinner.
20:45: Leave office with a taxi. Fuck it, I am too tired. ($3.20 after coupons)
Day 6: Wednesday
08:15: Wake up slightly later today.
09:40: Arrive at work via taxi since rush hour was over anyway ($4.50). I get breakfast from the store again ($1.50) and eat it with some oats that I keep in the office.
12:30: Order lunch because I didn’t bring lunch. I thought there was going to be a team lunch today but I had the date wrong. ($6.42)
13:30: I forget that I had to go to a conference in the afternoon. Get a taxi there ($12.70 reimbursed).
17:00: Absolutely starving so I hit up the food corner. Conference buffets are always super good or super bad. This one is super bad, but beggars can’t be choosers.
18:00: Leave the conference and metro home ($0.70) It’s so far out of the city center it takes forever.
19:30: I was supposed to have a dinner with some potential new partners as they are in town for the conference but I am so tired so I bail and eat something simple at home.
I decide to eat more healthfully to help me feel better so I order some meat, fish, vegetables, fruit, yoghurt, and dumplings to cook over the weekend. I also order water to be delivered tomorrow morning. ($48, will be split in half at the end of the month).
I also order some long overdue nice tableware so that I am more motivated to cook, now we have only a few plates and bowls that are dirty 80% of the time. ($35.70, will be split in half at the end of the month)
21:30: Groceries arrive, put them away, shower, bed.
Day 7: Thursday
07:30: I wake up earlier aiming to get back to the rhythm. Water arrives.
08:45: Arrive at work by bike. I get some fruits from the little grocery store downstairs to put in the office. ($7.50) I eat oatmeal with some of this haul for breakfast. Debrief on the conference yesterday and work on some market sizing.
12:30: So today is the day with the team lunch. I get banh mi. Love free lunches. ($8.60 paid by company)
14:00: My friend invites me to her birthday dinner with a prix fixe menu of tapas and free flow drinks at one of my favourite but impossible to book restaurants. I prepay her so that she can give a deposit to the restaurant. ($42.80)
16:00: The weekend mood is setting in! I am taking tomorrow off as it is my birthday.
18:30: Leave work so early!!!! I bike to pilates.
20:30: Finished at pilates and showered! Meet my partner near our home for a quick dinner at our favourite Taiwanese place because we are too lazy to cook. Pay separately. ($7.25 for my meal)
21:30: Get my hair washed at the salon. (Included in the monthly subscription)
23:00: Sleep, looking forward to the long weekend!
_____________
Total = $299.98 (excluding reimbursements)
Food + Drink = $166.92
Fun / Entertainment = $0
Home + Health = $35.70
Clothes + Beauty = $73.70 + 3 times hair wash on the salon subscription
Transport = $9.66
Other = $14
_____________
Reflections
This is a rather typical work week and social weekend for me. It is maybe a bit on the higher side because of restaurants and alcohol. Other usual monthly expenses that are not included this week is the purchase of some skincare that I never change ($25) or some “essential” clothes like socks, underwear, tights since it’s getting colder now and I have no idea why they disappear after the winter season each year. It also does not include my monthly lash extensions ($60).
I feel like I am quite frugal for day to day expenses, except for the hair skin nails. But when I spend, it’s at least $800 in a go on frivolous things usually at the end of a busy season, between clients when I have the time to feel anxious about my life and then try to “fix it” with purchases because “I have earned it”. I do want to cut down on my beauty expenses, especially the blow dry thing because it’s a hassle to go the salon all the time and I am average enough to wash my own damn hair.
Looking at the days, I feel like I am super tired all the time and am on the edge of burning out because weekdays are a constant mad rush without much me-time. I feel the FOMO and need to be constantly productive on weekends too. I also need to fix my food issue and have more balance in my life.
I am happy that I have, in the past 12 months, managed to get my spending 70% under control vs my freewheeling 3 years prior spending all that I made. I also want to be more consistent in investing what I have instead of “betting”.
submitted by AmIExtra to MoneyDiariesACTIVE [link] [comments]

Update to: First USA road trip, itinerary and general advice

Dear fellow roadtrippers, it has been about 2 years since I posted here asking for advice on a roadtrip.
First I want to thank everyone who commented with advice, but specially u/candres, u/Palindromer101, u/kmwilliams75, u/traveller22, u/211logos, u/bpsnoopy, u/yort410, u/CarbonGod, u/StDandtheChinchilla, u/leehawkings and u/OchoC, your comments and tips, at some point or another helped us -a lot!-
The trip developed into a bit more than a road trip, we arrived through Miami, and spent a week on the east coast visiting family. We then flew to Chicago, we had booked a roomette in the California Zephyr, stocked up on snacks and wine and off we went to Sacramento. The trip with the Zephyr was amazing, I cannot recommend it enough!
Below I will post some general insights but first, a few pictures!
​
TLDR: Had an amazing trip, people were wonderful, loved every second of it, fellow roadtrippers tips were a huge plus!
​
Planning and Budget
We planned the trip on Furkot (itinerary here), thanks to u/CarbonGod for suggesting it!
I first made a plan with all the suggestions I got and then tuned it. Furkot was really incredible, I checked possible stays and places to eat.
I made an excel sheet with a budget, based on what I found on Furkot for stays and the fixed prices for tickets.
I made a budget of about 5.000 USD (not included was the car rental, the plane tickets and the zephyr ticket), for both of us. It kept quite well, this included also what we spent before the actual roadtrip. The most expensive part by far was the time in the east coast.
Daily expenses on the actual road trip added up to about 300USD/day, for a total of around 4000USD. This includes everything: stays, foods, entrance tickets, coffees, souvenirs, anything and all we spent during the 13 days. We splurged when we wanted to, ate where we wanted to, stayed (mostly) where we wanted to.
A note on the Lonely Planet California Guide, I had gotten it as a present, don't even bother. It is outdated, and led us to book the worst stay of the whole trip (Big Mountain Lodge in Tahoe - the worst!).
Car Rental
I had booked and paid for everything in advance in a deal with the plane tickets. I had contacted my travel insurance to hear about additional insurances I might need, and they said do not get anything, we cover it all. When I got to the rental place, they of course tried to push insurance and made me scared enough to get it. At this point I couldn't call my company due to the time difference and just bit the bullet. I would say that this was the biggest unexpected expense (400USD), but I managed to get a deal on a better car with GPS (which I was very happy about) and some other "free" extras.
Updated information from the insurance is: Make sure the rental contract specifies a deductible, otherwise get the lowest level of insurance and we cover the rest.
We got an automatic GMC Acadia which my boyfriend refused to drive due to it being automatic, so I was designated driver for the whole trip, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
​
Hotel Bookings
Before the trip, I had a horrible anxiety about not having booked things in advance. This was really unnecessary and not worth it, we had so much freedom and flexibility and we didn't blow our budget. Plus, I was able to book last minute stays at two of my wish-list places: Yosemite Valley and the Benton Hot Springs! We never had to sleep in the car.
​
Journaling
I had gotten inspired by some old family trip albums and decided to keep a journal.
I collected brochures, receipts, tickets, stickers, whatever I could get my hands on for free, and bought a few choice things. I used ziploc bags to keep all this stuff organized, marking it with day of trip and location.
I managed to journal a few times once the roadtrip started, but it was not a realistic every day activity. I did most of it at home and I am not even done, Furkot, the organized ziplocs and the geolocation of the pictures helps a lot when sitting down to write. I did manage to journal quite a bit on the train though (before the roadtrip).
I stocked up on journaling and other supplies, some from home, some I ordered through Amazon to be picked up while East.
The list of things and its usefulness:
​
Supplies
We stocked up at Walmarts, using some common sense and the tips provided by u/CarbonGod, u/bpsnoopy and u/Palindromer101 we had made a list and a budget of 150US, which we managed to keep. This is roughly what we got:
​
Things that I didn't buy but wish I did:
We stocked up every few days, we didn't need more ice every day.
Meals
In average, we ate "out" at least once everyday, we never opted out of "too expensive" if that is what we wanted to eat. We relied a lot on our supplies and picnics, we enjoyed it thoroughly, there are so many beautiful random places to stop along the way: Folsom Lake, Lake Tahoe shores, the banks of Stanislaus river in Calaveras, Columbia, Yosemite, June Lake....
We soon remembered about the size of portions in the US when we couldn't finish our meals and many times we shared one portion.
Coffee
This requires a special mention. We are not such big coffee drinkers, but the morning cup is a must. It was hard to find good coffee in the hotels/motels. We kept a coffee diary too, for the most part it was awful, except at coffee shops. The little bags of coffee provided at the places we stayed to make on the coffee maker were truly horrible, not even using more quantity could we get some flavor out of it.
​
Highlights
  1. Benton Hot Springs, looking at the stars in a ghost town in the desert, while soaking in a hot tub was magic!
  2. Waking up in Yosemite Valley (we scored a "Donald Duck" tent, last minute in Curry Village)
  3. Murphys Historic Hotel, we loved it so much (the town and the hotel) we stayed an extra night. We met the hotel attendant, Bruce, a historian, who kindly took us on a tour of the old rooms, and told us the story of the hotel's ghost, Eleanor. We had dinner at the hotel and it was very good also, the service altogether was amazing. They were also the ONLY hotel to provide excellent coffee!!!
Now onto planning some more, I will post for some suggestions soon!
Edit: a few spelling mistakes
submitted by chickspiracy to roadtrip [link] [comments]

total plate count in drinking water video

TOTAL PLATE COUNT: Total Plate Count is a measure of the biological activity in a sample. This is a count of all (heterotrophic) bacteria, fungi (molds) and yeast that will grow in aerobic or microaerophilic conditions. This test is usually done at 35C to estimate population levels that are able to survive in or on humans. The test may be used to: The total plate count is the enumeration of aerobic, mesophillic organisms that grow in aerobic conditions under moderate temperatures of 20-45°C. This includes all aerobic bacteria, yeast, molds and fungi that grows in the specific agar. This count includes all pathogens and non pathogens and is used to determine the hygienic status of food plate count and total coliform counts ofwater, which require more than 24 h for results (1). More rapid methods for assessment of water Rapid detection of bacterial endotoxins in drinking waterandrenovatedwastewater.Appl.Environ.Micro-biol. 32:347-351. 8. Jorgensen, In most cases, the Total Aerobic Colony Count protocols recommend water is tested when it is at a temperature between 22 o C and 37 o C, with particular emphasis being placed on testing in water cooling towers. The protocols also recommend having a strong procedure for keeping records to help pick up any sudden changes in the test results which drinking-water quality reflects the experience of these and many other projects concerned with improving the quality of water services undertaken during the Decade. A number of important principles were established in the first edition of Volume 3 of the Guidelines and these continue to form an important part of the second edition. when you fill your kitchen sink with water and dirty plates...the number of plates in the sink is the total plate count in water. lol Heterotrophic plate count (HPC) n/a: TT 3: HPC has no health effects; it is an analytic method used to measure the variety of bacteria that are common in water. The lower the concentration of bacteria in drinking water, the better maintained the water system is. HPC measures a range of bacteria that are naturally present in the environment vi HPC and Drinking-water Safety 8 Infections from HPC organisms in drinking-water amongst the Immunocompromised A. Glasmacher, S. Engelhart and M. Exner 137 9 Methods to identify and enumerate frank and opportunistic bacterial pathogens in water and biofilms N.J. Ashbolt 146 10 Conditions favouring coliform and HPC bacterial growth in drinking-water and on water contact surfaces This indicator is also known as standard plate count (SPC), aerobic plate count (APC) and total plate count (TPC). The total coliform group is a large collection of bacteria that are mostly found in the environment (Figure 1). The feacal coliform group is a subset of the total coliform group “Out of all the drinking water microbiology tests I carried out as a bench analyst, the colony count tests were perhaps the most interesting. “Also known as ‘total viable count’, ‘standard plate count’ or ‘heterotrophic plate count’, I much prefer the name ‘colony count’ – not only is it the regulatory name for the test it

total plate count in drinking water top

[index] [8007] [151] [8501] [2341] [4898] [2533] [7208] [8673] [6045] [4438]

total plate count in drinking water

Copyright © 2024 vip.bkinfo81.site